


Derelict

by Archangel_Beth



Series: Borg of Star Trek Online [4]
Category: Star Trek Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 23,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Ten of Thirty is on a routine patrol near New Romulus when an old... acquaintance shows up with mysterious orders that take the <i>R.R.W. Kinaen</i> to a distant star in the darker part of the galactic plane. Why can't these things happen to Commander Jarok of the <i>Lleiset</i> instead? (Oh, right, because <i>someone</i> wanted to borrow an ex-Borg, that's why...)</p>
<p>Cover art, if desired, at <a href="http://archangelbeth.deviantart.com/art/Derelict-582461126">http://archangelbeth.deviantart.com/art/Derelict-582461126</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _Disclaimer: Partway through, I started trying to write in a "camera view" instead of a thought-reading view. This being fanfic and me not getting paid for it, I am probably not going to edit to be consistent. Such is life. Sorry! But if someone wished to option it for an episode, I'm sure that edits would be performed according to editorial directives! @_^_

The world of New Romulus, despite its claim to "homeworld" status, was really more of a very large colony. As such, it needed resources: basic biological matter, fuel for replicators, finished goods that their own industrial replicators couldn't meet demand for, luxuries... And payment might be in electronically-recorded funds, latinum, or biological wealth from the new-colonized planet. In short, there were traders going to and from New Romulus, holds laden with goods -- and often with people as well, between far-flung Romulans returning home for the first time, work-crews and altruistic aid volunteers seeking to assist in the colonization effort, and Romulan workers leaving for jobs that would earn money they could send back home. Smugglers plied their trade with sly abandon, depositing less-than-honest "colonists" or accepting native plants and wildlife that had perhaps not been obtained through the proper channels.

Therefore, Mol'Rihan was a wonderful draw for pirates and slavers.

That was why the trio of ships -- one Orion slaver and a pair of Nausicaan mercenaries -- were drifting along the edges of the Azure Nebula. The main trade routes were a bit heavily patrolled for their small ships, but smugglers were prone to diving into the area. Catching one of those ships meant getting all their benefits, plus one ship (likely to be somewhat damaged) and any surviving crew. And if they spotted an insufficiently-protected cargo ship a little too close to their hiding spot, all to the better.

Of course, the problem with stalking Romulan trade routes was the existence of Romulan cloaking. Unprotected cargo ships were frequently less unprotected than they appeared.

This point was brought home to the would-be pirates, along with a rain of torpedoes, when the Daeinos Warbird appeared nearly on top of them.

On the bridge of the _Kinaen_ sat Commander Ten of Thirty, pale ex-Borg with pointed ears, giggling "Torpedoes for _everyone!_ " under her breath. (It was, sadly, one of her favorite comments; she was attempting to keep her bridge crew happy by saying it out loud only once a week.)

The next command, of course, was "Shoot them all!" That was followed by more conventional swooping about to get the forward cannons aimed at the slightly larger Orion ship, whilst dropping mines behind them.

From the comm came her engineer's voice: "Singularity charge is sufficient, Commander."

Folding space into a tiny black hole while a ship jumped away from the area was probably bad for space. Alas, it was one of Ten's favorite maneuvers, and nearly all her crew had found ways to keep track of the _Kinaen_ 's singularity charge during combat -- and hang on when it got high enough.

The three pirate ships, wounded but not crippled, warped out. Ten frowned. "Can we run one of them down without engaging slipstream?" The slipstream drive dumped all the combat-charge from their captive singularity, which meant the enemy would have no enlightening conversations with black holes.

"I'll try, Commander," replied Konratra -- that shift's helmsman, a gray-haired Romulan woman.

As it happened, the answer was no. The _Kinaen_ came to the borders of its assigned patrol before they'd quite managed to close with the straggling Nausicaan, who had, in the end, put all their power into their engines.

"Leave off," Ten said, sitting back in her chair. "They might be a diversion, after all. Or bait."

"Yes, Commander. Cloak here?"

Warp speed and cloaking didn't go well together -- there were too many ways to notice warp trails without a visible ship to disguise them. "Not yet. Get us out of immediate sensor range, then cloak and we'll hang around and see if anything shows up."

"Yes, Com-- Commander? There's a ship coming up from behind us, right on our trail."

Behind and to the left of the command chair, at the weapons console, Tovan added, "Its shields are up, but weapons uncharged. Scanning now -- looks like a cargo ship."

Ten pulled her booted legs in from the incipient lounging she'd been preparing to commit. "Come around, shields raised. We can always blame them on concerns that those pirates might show up again."

"Ship's hailing us," Tovan reported.

Ten straightened entirely. "That's good. All right, on-screen -- but keep watching for those pirates."

The bridge that appeared had a battered, beige-furred Caitian in the captain's chair, and a pair of humans at the consoles. The Caitian immediately said, "Please tell me you're a Republic ship."

"I don't think the Tal Shiar have any formerly Borg commanders," Ten said, chin twitching up slightly.

"Good enough. Got a couple Terran passengers for you."

Ten blinked her single eye and turned her head to look over her left shoulder. "Tovan, have we become a cruise ship without anyone telling me?"

Before her first officer could reply, the Caitian said, flatly, "I will pay you. To take them. Off my ship."

In an uncharacteristically slow movement, Ten turned back to the viewscreen and tipped her head to one side in bafflement. "...why?"

The Caitian's ears were down, flat against his skull. "The female one. Talks. And talks. And talks. And tries to ask questions. Stupid questions. How much do you want to take her?"

With a sigh, Ten straightened again. "The Romulan Republic does not hold up desperate, honest captains for all they can afford. So long as they won't claim we're kidnapping them, and it will break no passenger contracts..."

"She _wants_ to go to a Republic ship. That's why we're here. You'll take them?" His notched ears went up and tilted forward, as eager as his voice.

"We'll beam them over as soon as your transporter room is ready. Why do they want to be on one of our ships?"

"Says she's a _journalist_. Says it. So. Many. Times." His patchy, scar-laced fur was standing on end. "We'll contact you in less than ten minutes. I'll get her ready myself. _Atepen_ out."

The screen went blank.

"Journalists, Ten?" Tovan asked.

The short ex-Borg shrugged, draping an arm over the back of her chair so she could twist around and look at her First Officer. "He was desperate. D'Tan wouldn't want us taking advantage of that. Anyway, we're on the list for diplomatic liaising with the Federation, and if they're human, they're probably Fed. And if it turns out they're spies, we can stuff them in the brig."

"If you say so." He turned back to the console. "I'll have a security team meet them and escort them to guest quarters."

Ten stretched out again. "Once that's done, cloak and tail the cargo ship for a while so its warp signature will hide ours. Wouldn't want our grateful fellow there to get into trouble before he spreads word of our kindness."

"Aye, Commander," said the helmsman.


	2. Opening Credits

*orchestral music*

*opening credits*

*many lovely shots of a fwooshy, shiny Daeinos Heavy Destroyer, interspersed with montage-portraits of main bridge crew doing Actiony things*

**Ten of Thirty** : a relatively short female Romulan, with a white-haired widow's peak upon her smooth forehead; her right eye is replaced by a Borg lens set into a black metal plate, and her skin is Borg-white. She wears blue-black and charcoal gray, with thigh-high leather boots, and a single, silken scarf-banner trails from her right shoulder-pauldron. Her action shot has her toting a bulky rifle that's about 2/3rds her height, though her expression is almost Vulcanly calm.

**[Tovan Khev](http://sto.gamepedia.com/Tovan_Khev)** : a male Romulan with stubble, a tattoo fanning spokes half-around one eye, and a bit of a glower (added to by his forehead-ridges). He's still wearing dun-colored leather instead of anything resembling a uniform. His action shot is striding away, broodily, from the force-screened prison cell where his Tal Shiar ex-girlfriend stands with her back to him.

**[Satra](http://sto.gamepedia.com/Satra)** : a Romulan woman in a long blue-gray jacket, with a slightly shaggy widow's peak. For her action shot, she is performing emergency medical treatment on someone, with a long, slender rifle strapped to her back.

**[Veril](http://sto.gamepedia.com/Veril)** : a female Reman in an gray leather Reman hood, with a silvery visor to protect her vision. In action, she's setting up a (photonic) shield generator from its compressed state, its blue glow springing into existence in time to absorb energy blasts.

**Teilia** : another female Reman, gray-skinned, square-jawed, and stern, wearing brown and gold leather. She taps her wrist-computer and mines beam onto the ground before her.

Group shots include:

•[D'vex](http://sto.gamepedia.com/D%27Vex), sleeves rolled up, deep in something mechanical;  
• Thydel Ell, a dark-skinned Bajoran man with close-shaved hair and an almost-mirror-universe beard;  
• F'rul, a black-furred Caitian male with a patch over his right eye and his right arm and shoulder armored (or possibly mechanical), hands braced to either side of a vidscreen full of data (as befits an Intelligence specialist);  
• Misha (Misha Shakia Konieczka), a medium-dark human woman with an abstract, reddish-brown tattoo along her left temple and cheek, who looks younger than she really is -- and the two short pony-tails at the base of her neck don't make up for that no matter how aggressively she postures (she's decking someone in her action shot, though);  
• Nehor, a Romulan woman with dark olive-brown skin; short, straight auburn hair; a smooth forehead; and a perpetually worried expression to go with her large rifle;  
• and Nirel, female Romulan science officer, a shade darker (and greener) than Satra, with a rounder face.


	3. Welcome, Guests

Daeinos-class Warbirds are agile for their size -- especially with a few tweaks made by a good engineering crew -- but that size is still large. The high-ceilinged transporter room could handle (and had, more than once) large numbers of crates, decently-sized boarding parties, or numerous refugees. This meant that beaming in a mere two humans was a bit anticlimactic from the crew's point of view, though apparently somewhat overawing from the human perspective, as the woman began rubbernecking as soon as she'd solidified.

As Terrans went, she started with non-descript genes. Brown hair, a couple shades darker than her skin, with eyes to match -- though the hairstyle was swept up elaborately and streaked with at least three different shades of gold, and her eye-makeup was heavy on the glitter. Her clothing was a cacophony of colors and styles, ranging from a vaguely Klingon vest in a paisley print, to a miniskirt that direly wanted to appear Romulan and merely achieved "sequined," and ending with Orion-style sandals.

Her companion was male, paler, and far more drab, wearing browns and grays. His hair was cut militarily short, and he had a seedy air about him. He was far too busy managing a camera tripod to engage in rubbernecking.

The rest of their luggage was beamed in next, but only the man seemed to notice, as the woman had dropped her small duffle-bag and was dancing around in circles, her wide, translucent blouse-sleeves fluttering. "We got here! We got here, Joseph! We're really here!"

"Yes, Nyx," he said absently, checking the suitcases and large metal camera-crates.

Nyx pouted at him. "I should've brought Sanchez. _They_ would've been excited."

"They're doing a sports comparison across the sector and are on Andor now," Joseph said.

The transporter operator, a gray-haired Romulan woman in a Republic uniform, cleared her throat. "Will you need assistance with your baggage? We have a security detail to escort you to guest quarters, but they don't do... suitcases."

"Ooo, security!" Nyx clapped her hands. "Will they answer questions, do you think?"

Joseph added, "We're fine, ma'am. They've got rollers." He rocked one of the crates to illustrate.

"Excellent. If you could clear the pad, please..."

With an _Oh! Yes! Of course!_ Nyx started to help her companion move their belongings -- but was immediately distracted when the doors opened. "Ah! Borg!"

The transporter officer rolled her eyes. The security officers, in their Starfleet-standard uniforms, didn't -- or if they did, it would be hard to tell, as both of them had matte charcoal sensors instead of eyes, with an antenna-implant covering the male's left eye-socket.

Joseph stabilized the crate Nyx was cowering against. "I don't think they're Collective," he said, with a glance at the extremely unconcerned transporter officer.

"Oh?" Nyx peered intently at the pair as they entered the room.

"We're not," the female said. "I am known as One of Three. This is Five of Six. May we have your identification, please?"

"Nyx Junia D'Cruz." Nyx patted around herself before turning back to where she'd dropped her bag. The two security crew waited impassively for her to scrabble around in it and finally present a palm-sized data-pad. "Passports!"

One of Three stepped forward and took the item, activating it with a tap of her thumb. Images of both humans appeared, with accompanying text. "Indeed." She slipped it into a nearly-hidden pocket at her upper leg. "I will verify these in more detail after you are in your quarters."

Nyx looked like she wanted to ask for the data-pad back, but Joseph handed her the bag she'd dropped once again, and said, "We're ready, ma'am."

"This way." She led the way out the door. The male security-(ex)Borg waited for Nyx and Joseph to pass (him pushing one crate with the tripod rattling on it, and towing another), and brought up the rear.

* * *

Ten of Thirty was in her opulent "ready-room" when One of Three brought the passport-pad. (One of the benefits of Republic ships was that they were mostly built to Star Empire standards, and the Star Empire hadn't liked it when the Federation got more luxurious than they were. So even a "small" commander's office gave enough room for a couch, a terrarium, and an ample desk.)

"Their identification, sir," the security officer said, sliding the pad onto the desk and across one of the holographic displays.

Ten reached out and pulled the pad into the center of her vision, tapping it into life. "That's vivid," she remarked of Nyx's picture, which included the streaks in the hair and glitter in the makeup. She flipped to the next picture, of Joseph. "And that's not."

"Their baggage scanned clean, sir."

"Not even a phaser wired permanently to stun?"

"They seem to be civilians, sir." Starfleet weren't precisely civilians. Borg were definitely not civilians. Former Borg in Starfleet, exchange-crew with a Romulan Republic ship whose own commander had grown up in a cube...

There were no civilians in that ready-room. Civilians were what both had vowed to protect.

Ten glanced up. "But cameras and microphones are cameras and microphones, whether they're used by a civilian or a spy?"

"Yes, Commander."

"And the equipment to diagnose and maintain them would be useful to journalists this far from home. As well as to spies."

"Our concerns exactly, sir."

"Agreed. Arrange to keep an eye on them?"

"Yes, sir." One of Three saluted, received her commander's nod, and left swiftly and efficiently.

Alone in her office, Ten leaned back in her chair, thoughtfully holding the passport. She murmured, "And have you left any messages for me, 'Joseph Sanders'?"

From her wrist, thin charcoal cables snaked out and embedded themselves into the passport-pad.


	4. Helllooooo, First Officer!

Nyx had a camera floating at her shoulder, a microphone in her hand, and a fresh set of glitter-streaks in her hair. She'd showered, changed clothes, and gotten her hair and makeup done -- and Joseph _still_ wasn't done unpacking, and had a shower of his own he needed to get to.

The guest quarters on a Romulan warbird weren't as large as on a Federation ship, but were certainly better than those of the cargo-ship they'd taken into Tau Dewa space. Nyx muttered, "I don't see how Joseph can hold off on that shower." Then she shrugged and stepped out of her room to go prowling.

The halls weren't crowded with people, but they weren't empty, either. Shift-changes were often staggered between departments, so the corridors wouldn't get clogged, and even on-duty people might need to run errands, while off-duty crew headed from one location to another, or just walked for the sake of stretching their legs without reserving holodeck time.

Over half the people in question in those halls were Romulan, generally dressed in the Republic uniform, with its rounded shoulders a defiant, distinct break from the Star Empire's points and padding. Perhaps as a sop to Starfleet exchange crew (who still wore their regulation uniforms), the Republic jackets were color-coded similarly, in amber-beige, a red with pinkish tinges, or dusty blue. 

The person who cleared her throat behind Nyx, however, was human, and wearing a modified uniform, its pants paneled in red and black, probably with hidden pockets. Her hair was pulled back into twin short ponytails, which made her look like a green cadet despite the tattoo along her left temple. Her arms were folded.

"Can I help you?!" Nyx chirped.

The other woman pointed at Nyx's camera. "Is that thing on?"

"Yes!"

"Mm-hm. All right. I'm Misha Konieczka, second-shift Security chief. You make sure your records blur the faces of any Romulans. We don't need the Tal Shiar getting good pictures of Republic citizens."

Nyx blinked three times, opened her mouth, hesitated, and finally said, "Oh. Yes. Of course. I'll be sure to protect identities!"

"Good. Because anyone you expose is someone who can't be used for undercover operations, and if the worst happens and this ship is captured, they can't pretend they were prisoners or simple refugees. You get careless, and lives are put in danger."

"I'll be _sure_ to put filters on everyone," Nyx promised fervently. "Everyone!"

Misha shrugged. "The Star Empire doesn't like non-Romulans, so we'd all be in trouble anyway. Mm. Okay, the Vulcans might be able to fake it, so make sure to blur anyone with pointed ears."

"Yes, ma'am. Can I interview you, ma'am?"

Now it was Misha's turn to blink. "Er, me?"

"What it's like to be a human officer on a Romulan ship? How do Starfleet experiences differ? Are there cultural problems?"

"You have no idea," Misha said, almost reflexively, leaning in for a moment. Then she jerked herself back to a more formal pose. "I don't think this is anything I should be discussing without my captain's permission."

"Ooo, tell me about your captain! Is it true she's responsible for presenting Starfleet with actual recordings of historical personages due to unintended time travel?"

"If this ship had time-traveled, that would be classified and I'd have to talk to Temporal Affairs before I discussed it with anyone," Misha said, with the tone of someone quoting regulations from the book.

"Well, who _can_ talk to me?" Nyx asked, intensity not quite to "demand" but coming close.

"That would be--" Misha broke off, looking past Nyx's shoulder. "Tovan! This is _your_ pay grade!"

Nyx turned around. Her glitter-bedecked eyes widened. She bit her lip. "He- _llo!"_ she chirped.

Tovan looked between her and Misha. Misha, in a similar chirp, said, "This would be one of the journalists we took on, sir! Nyx, right?" she asked, and at Nyx's distracted nod, continued, "This is Nyx, sir! Nyx, this is Tovan Khev, our first officer. And it's time for me to go on-duty, sir, so I'll be going now!" She saluted, and fled, leaving Tovan and Nyx looking at each other: Tovan wary, and Nyx... starry-eyed.

With the tone of someone who strongly suspects he is about to regret something, Tovan said, "Can I help you?"

* * *

Joseph came out of his shower with a towel around his waist and a smaller one draped over the back of his neck, freshly damp from its job of drying his short-cropped hair.

The room was dark. He said, "Computer, lights on, human-normal."

The room brightened, exposing the bunk, desk, chair -- and the person sitting in the chair, her shoulder-sash trailing over its back.

Joseph paused. "Captain," he said politely.

"Franklin Drake." Her tone was mild. "What brings you to my ship, Federation agent?"

* * *

"And this is our scientific hydroponics section, where plants are grown and analyzed under a variety of conditions," Tovan said, with the air of someone who'd had to play tour guide to diplomats and the like -- and hadn't liked it much the last time he did it, either.

"Fascinating," Nyx breathed, staring more at him than at the carefully screened examples of alien botany. After a moment, she added, "And, er, are there recreation facilities on Republic ships?"

"We have a holodeck, of course," he said. "It's not up to Federation standards -- or so we hear -- but it's a good way to train people how to handle situations without getting in anyone's way. Or keep in practice with weapons. That sort of thing." He attempted to sidle away from Nyx, just a little.

She followed him, apparently unconsciously, as if by tractor beam. "Do you have 'vacation programs'?"

"A few, but mostly the holodeck is reserved for training simulations," he said firmly.

Nyx looked disappointed. "Is that the only sort of recreation area the ship has?"

Tovan hesitated, then admitted, "There's a... lounge."

His expression remained slightly fixed as Nyx perked up and chirped, "Could we see it? I'm sure it would be wonderful in a documentary!"

"Of course, miss," he said woodenly. "This way."

As they walked, she asked, "And how did you wind up on this ship?"

"Ten and I were the ones flying the shuttle that got to... D'Vex and Malem's ship." Tovan sighed faintly. "Some other people got ships or shuttles out, too, though the Tal Shiar shot down a few, or beamed everyone off them. One of us managed an entire small warbird that'd been in for repairs. Still, us in an antique T'liss, and him in a half-functioning one, plus a few shuttles? We wouldn't have lasted long if Commander Temer hadn’t shown up."

Nyx laid a hand on his arm. "It sounds terrifying."

"That's an understatement," he muttered, with a glance at Nyx's hand. More clearly, he said, "Would've been more terrifying if Ten hadn't been able to crack the security codes on the warbird and get the systems online. There was nobody on it -- probably why it didn't get destroyed when the Tal Shiar came in-system -- so nobody was there to unseal the weapons."

"Gracious! How did you manage in time?"

" _She_ interfaced with a console," Tovan said. "I just said something like, 'We need to get the weapons and engines online or we're just target practice for the Tal Shiar.'"

"Interfaced?"

"The commander's name _is_ Ten of Thirty. It's a Borg trick. Fortunately, she... What's the human phrase? She 'uses her powers for good.' And here's the lounge."

"Oh! How lovely!" Nyx, hand curled around Tovan's arm, looked around the room they'd entered. It was large, with chairs, tables, benches in star-viewing nooks... She raised her glitter-adorned eyes to Tovan's. "Buy a girl a drink?"

"Ah... Sure," he said, with a note of defeat entirely missed (or ignored) by the human. "Have a seat somewhere. I'll be right back."

Without any evidence of worrying that Tovan would make a break for it, Nyx slipped away with a smile and a wave, making for one of the star-watching booths.

* * *

Back in her ready-room, Ten sat on the edge of her desk, holding a small, slightly rectangular object in one hand -- apparently a microphone, as she spoke into it. "Begin recording. To Admiral Kererek, from Commander Dha t'Seha. Or should that be t'Borg? Ten of Thirty. I apologize for this message and for the means by which you should be receiving it." She firmly clicked a button on the device and muttered, "Though not the tone I am recording it in."

With another click, she continued, "I had not thought, when I volunteered to be a diplomatic liaison to Starfleet, that I had also volunteered to serve two masters. But apparently a Federation agent thinks I have, and he claims his request is approved of."

Still speaking, she wandered to the terrarium that occupied one corner of the room. Her reflected eyepiece gleamed. "I protest that I am leaving this patrol route unattended. I hope that another ship will be assigned as soon as possible, for while it's true that would mean an entire crew would become aware the _Kinaen_ had wandered off, our own people should be more adept at keeping their mouths shut about it than pirates bragging they'd slipped past my nose.

"However, I am assured that you know what's going on, at least as much as I do. And so I obey. To modify a saying from where I grew up: this unit serves the Republic." She clicked the device again, went back to her desk, and set it near one of the holographically projected screens. "Secure this recording to the biometrics of Admiral Kererek and Proconsul D'Tan."

While light played across the narrow rectangle, Ten touched another spot on the desk, summoning up a small image of her Bajoran officer -- one of the exchange-officers from Starfleet. "Thydel, I have an encrypted message I want delivered to the command center on New Romulus. We're still shadowing that freighter that deposited the journalists, yes?"

" _We are, Captain,_ " he replied over the link. " _We'll be breaking off in the next two hours, though._ "

"The message unit is ready, and I'll hand it over to you in just a moment, on my way to recharge. Contact the _Atepen_ when we're a half-hour away from the turning point, and have it beamed over, would you?"

" _Of course, Captain._ "

"See you in a heartbeat." She scooped up the message device and departed the room.


	5. Cutting Remarks

Ten was in the holodeck, practicing sword-skills, when Tovan slipped into it with the eyes of a hunted man. Ten parried and slashed her holographic opponent -- hood and mask denying any specific race -- and as it fell, called, "Pause program."

"No, no," he hissed. "Pretend I'm not here!" He looked around the sparsely-themed holographic setting.

"Why do I need to pretend you're not here?" Ten asked, tilting her head with a mechanical tic.

" _She's_ looking for me. It's been three days and I'm already running out of places to hide!" He turned to the wall and said, "Computer, show available sword-practice settings."

"The journalist?" Ten said while Tovan scrolled through the offerings. "Hasn't she run out of questions to ask you?"

"That only means she's closer to coming out with 'So when will you visit my quarters?' And then I have to tell her 'Never, hopefully,' and then there's a diplomatic incident or something." He stabbed a finger at the wall-panel and the surroundings turned into a small amphitheater, with holographic spectators murmuring to each other on the seats above the arena. Tovan turned and hurried up some stairs to a box-seat with a single high-backed chair in it, leaning over the railing to add, "She doesn't seem like someone who'll take 'no' very well."

"So you're hiding with me? Am _I_ supposed to make threats at her?"

"No, that's only if your si-- That'd only be if I liked her back."

"I'm not sure that makes sense, Tovan," she said.

"The threats are if they break your friend's heart, so it's not traditional if I'm _running away_."

"Got it. Only threaten if you're mooning over someone."

"Exactly!" He ducked down behind the railing.

"Socialization is complicated," she remarked. "Computer, display opponents for swords. Single combat. Skill level five. Shallow wounds enabled."

Holographic opponents, still masked, appeared around the edges of the arena.

The doors opened again, and Nyx bounced in, hover-cam floating obediently above her shoulder.

"Pause combat," Ten said, then muttered, "I'm going to check that door-lock." She turned fully towards Nyx, head twitching as she looked the human woman up and down.

"Um, hi!" the journalist chirped. "You must be the captain! I don't think we've met!"

"I've been busy," Ten said. "You are looking for me?"

"Well..." Nyx hesitated briefly. "Sure! I'd been trying to get a chance to interview you!"

"I suppose I am available just now." She made no move to sheath her sword. "No more than five minutes. I am hoping to achieve level six in sword combat today."

"Level... six?"

"They are not precisely linear, nor exponential. Level two competency is usually sufficient to deal with Borg drones. Level ten is extremely difficult to achieve. I have just incremented to level five. You have four minutes now."

"Uh -- can I watch? Can I film, I mean? You fighting?" Nyx's flustered expression turned eager.

After another thoughtful pause, Ten pointed at the holographic stands. Nyx hastened over, plopping herself down beside a simulated old-Romulus Senator who -- if she'd been real -- would have been horrified to see a human so close, rather than slightly miffed. Nyx ignored the non-sapient photonic construct and pulled her hover-cam from the air to fiddle with it. "Ready!"

"Computer, resume."

One of the frozen opponents strode forward, its sword matched in length to Ten's, but the wielder was taller and with more reach. When it reached a point perhaps two meters from the arena wall, it swept up its sword in a form of salute, then lowered it and rushed at Ten. She lunged to meet it, and their blades clashed and rang with the force of contact. The simulated combatant's programming was enough to require the Borg to feel it out, feinting and defending, before going fully on the offensive. Then, as level five was not _dueling_ , she included leg-sweeps and once an elbow strike when an awkward parry and sidestep had her back against the hologram's chest. (She then ducked its attempt to grab her around the neck.)

When the first opponent fell, fading out, the second was already waiting at the two-meter point, and swept its sword up before taking a pace within the unmarked ring. More defensive than the first, it seemed to want Ten to waste her strength in attacks in order to wear her down. Ten, meanwhile, became more economical in her movements.

Nyx, camera entirely set up and recording on its own, shifted at the less-flashy combat. She looked around, then stood and tried moving to a higher seat; faux Romulans frowned at her and refused to give way from their own places. With a grimace, the journalist ducked down and edged around the arena-wall, back flattened to it. When she got to the stairs leading to the box-seat, she darted up them.

At the top, on the same side as the stairs, Tovan sat with his back against the railing's half-wall. His expression was... cornered. Nyx's face lit up with a delighted grin, but first she went to the other corner of the box-seat and positioned the hover-cam, leaving it there while she all but dove for the spot next to the Romulan first officer.

He tried to sidle a little further away, but was already in a corner of the box-seat's available space. "You're missing the show," he said quietly, jerking his head in the direction of the arena.

"Camera's getting it! Why're you hiding up here?"

"I needed to think," he said, somewhat unconvincingly.

"What did you need to think about?" Nyx beamed at him at close range.

He lifted a hand to the railing beside him. "Ship matters," he said, and hauled himself up.

Nyx followed him to standing, attempting to cuddle up beside him. "Anything you can talk about?"

"No," he stated, fixedly watching the arena.

"Oh." Momentarily taken aback, Nyx glanced down to where Ten still battled a hologram. This was a third opponent, swift and precise. As they watched, the ex-Borg skimped on a parry in order to return a thrust, and took a shallow cut to one arm. The dark cloth didn't show blood, but Borg-pale skin was clearly visible. Nyx said, "Um."

Tovan glanced at her, then back down. "Replicated clothes, at least."

The hologram feinted. Their blades swirled around each other as if orbiting a central point. Then the hologram thrust again and Ten-- moved her head in a sideways jerk while thrusting as well. The holographic blade skimmed her cheek, leaving green blood in its wake, while her own blade pierced through the masked, non-sapient photonic's eye.

Nyx said, "Is, is that going to scar? I mean, is she going to..."

"It won't scar, even if she doesn't go to Sickbay to get it fixed. Nanites'll get to it."

"That's _so weird_."

Tovan leaned his arms on the ledge. "I suppose it was at first. Now it's just, well..." He shrugged. "She's Ten. Commander Ten now."

"How long has it been since, er..."

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "She was assimilated as a kid, maybe two years old. She got pulled out... about a year before Virinat was attacked by the Tal Shiar and the Elachi. And it's been, oh, coming up on a year since then. Not counting any time travel, which wouldn't have been for very long anyway, if it had happened, which only gets confirmed or denied by people above us in the chain of command."

Nyx giggled. "You've got that down pat." She watched as, below them, Ten dispatched another holographic opponent. Then she looked at Tovan and said, "So... you're in love with her?"

Tovan eyed her. "Why do humans always jump to that conclusion? It's not like that. We're... friends. It would be creepy to think of her that way, when I first met her as a little fuzzy-headed ex-drone. And even if I'd met her like she is now, I'm not her type."

"Don't see why not," Nyx said, hopefully.

"She has, apparently, very specific criteria. Which are classified, so I'm not going to talk about them."

Nyx was momentary diverted and uncomfortable. "I hope Joseph doesn't meet them. He hasn't been leaving the room much..."

Nearly monotone, Tovan replied, "I am almost certain he does _not_."

"So, mmmm..." With a smile and a lowering of her glittering eyelids, Nyx was clearly working up to a different question.

"I need to get back to the bridge," Tovan said abruptly, pushing himself away from the half-wall.

"Wait--" Nyx said, torn between darting towards her hover-cam, positioned to watch Ten's battle and rushing after the _Kinaen_ 's first officer as he left the spectators' box. By the time she abandoned the camera and darted down the stairs, he was vanishing out the holodeck door.

Just as Nyx was about to exit the stair-niche, a holographic opponent slammed past it, into the wall, followed by the dark-clad, Borg-pale Ten. The small Romulan sliced the hologram's throat in a move that would've sprayed blood over herself, Nyx, and most of the surroundings, had the program been that realistic. Instead, the combatant merely faded out.

Straightening, Ten said, "Pause program." She tilted her head at Nyx, sword dangling from one gloved hand. "You're forgetting your camera."

"Er..."

"I can't command a Federation civilian," Ten said, lifting her blade towards the center of the arena, where another masked opponent waited, frozen in mid-step. She sighted down the weapon at the hologram. "And Borg don't understand social matters well anyway. But it seems you are at risk of compromising your dignity."

"I--I don't understand, Captain."

"Technically, the rank is 'Commander,' but I understand the confusions between the fleet titles." In a swift, mechanical jerk, she turned her head to regard the human woman squarely. "Not everyone who runs wants to be chased, Miss D'Cruz."

Nyx stiffened slightly. "I'm not sure I understand," she said, though her tone suggested the hint had landed.

"You don't have the advantages of a built-in scanner, so it must be harder to tell... Mm. Anyway. If you insist on this hunt, I advise lures, not pursuit. Resume program." She bounded off to meet the next hologram, their blades clashing.

After a few moments, Nyx turned, climbed the stairs again, and went to sit by her camera.


	6. Interesting Questions

_Commander Ten of Thirty sits in her office/ready room, with holographic displays around her._

"Captain's Log, timestamped. As Admiral Kererek has asked that I give slightly longer reports, quote for a change unquote, I am experimenting with this method. In theory, I could simply dump this whole log-file to text and deliver it _instead_ of having to summarize it. I believe that is what my sister, Eight, does, only she composes a running report and saves it to internal storage, then outputs it later."

_The scene shifts to Nyx and "Joseph," wandering about the ship, doing impromptu interviews. "Joseph" carries a fancier camera, and some lighting equipment._

"It has been slightly over eight days since we took on the 'reporters.' I am unsure whether Miss D'Cruz is Drake's patsy or an agent herself, but at least she has stopped cornering my first officer and is instead lying in wait for him. It makes her easier to avoid, and perhaps someone else will distract her if she stays put."

_From Nyx lurking in the bar, the image shifts to an exterior shot of the **Kinaen**..._

"In the meantime, the _Kinaen_ proceeds into the darkness, heading for coordinates that, when I checked, match nothing but an especially dim star, and one 'below' the better-populated areas of the galactic plane. We've activated slipstream once, and will be doing so again tomorrow, in a controlled burst that should not strain the engines. I would not like to be stranded out here."

_Shots of the engine room, with Veril consulting with D'Vex, fade back to Ten in her office._

"I reiterate, I am uncomfortable with taking orders from this Federation agent. I don't trust him, and my sister Eight doesn't trust him. Please clarify whether, in future interactions -- if any -- I should refuse him, or play along so we will know what nonsense the sticky side of the Federation is up to."

_Ten stands, though leaning on her desk._

"End today's log."

* * *

"Nearing the coordinates, Commander," said the gray-haired helmsman, Konratra. She added, "How close to precise do you want to be with them, sir?"

Ten's eye was half-lidded thoughtfully. "Interesting question. Once we're in-system, start scanning -- but be ready to cloak and evade if anything jumps out at us."

"Yes, Commander. Entering system in the next minute."

The _Kinaen_ warped into the neighborhood of that particularly dim dwarf star, folded its warp engines back into its body, and commenced scanning as per its commander's wishes. The starlight barely illuminated the ship's outlines, and the sky was black behind it.

On the bridge, the science officer, Nirel, said, "This is the most wretched system I ever scanned. There's nothing here but the dwarf and an asteroid belt, and I'm not detecting any interesting minerals. There's not enough radiation, masking metals, or large asteroids to make this a good place for smugglers or spies to hide. About the only reason to be here would be to meet someone when you wanted to be sure they couldn't sneak up on you -- and even then, with cloaking..."

"It's... atmospheric for clandestine meetings?" Tovan suggested.

Primly, Nirel said, "Surely there are more convenient locations for 'atmosphere.' Of which there is essentially none, unless you count the star itself."

Ten, legs stretched out as she lounged in the command chair, said, "But nothing interesting?"

"Not at first scan, Commander. Am I looking for something specific?"

"I wonder." With a sigh, Ten retracted her legs enough to stand up. "Or someone may be showing up. Alternate cloaking and lurking with meandering around and scanning things from different angles. I'm taking a walk. Tovan... you want to stay here, I wager."

"You think _she_ knows anything?" Tovan said dubiously.

"This whole trip is full of fascinating mysteries," Ten said, striding to the turbolift with her captain's sash fluttering behind her. "You have the bridge."

* * *

Joseph -- or, rather, "Joseph" -- was sitting in one corner of the bar while Nyx chatted up the Bajoran exchange officer in the guise of an interview, with a subtext of hoping rumors would get back to her actual quarry and cause jealousy instead of relief.

Perhaps reacting to movement behind him, "Joseph" picked up his glass and drank from it. An instant later, small, coin-like items clattered softly on the table, where the drink had been, and Ten said, "I believe these are yours."

"But they're not in my ale," he replied. "Can I help you, Commander?"

She stayed leaning over him, gloved hand on the back of his chair. "We're at the coordinates. It's very boring here. Are we ahead of schedule?"

He took another sip of his ale, not looking over his shoulder at her. "How long have we been here?"

"Long enough to do a good scan."

"Give it a couple days."

"And what are we going to be looking for?"

"Now that--"

"If you say that's a good question, I will strongly consider whether I can pry the information from your brain via carefully injected nanites."

"That would be a treaty violation, Commander."

"You, Federation agent, are a walking treaty violation. I'm sure I could come up with a cover story by the time we got back. Grievous head injury while rock-climbing in the holodeck. Emergency repairs with healing nanites. You'd even agree with me."

After another sip, he said, "I know what our reports say. I don't want to bias you."

"Talk around the answer more clearly," Ten said.

"There's always a risk of some kind of energy manifestation that will be perceived differently by different people, if they don't compare notes and synthesize a group reality."

After a moment of staring at him, Ten said, "Something strange will happen."

"Virtually certain of it."

"Which may or may not correspond to the reports you've seen."

He nodded.

"And we are to be kept in the dark until then."

"Sorry," he said, though it didn't sound entirely sincere.

"If this is some holographic experiment--" Ten began, leaning closer to him and lifting a hand just enough that one wrist-probe could be seen creeping out over the space between thumb and forefinger. Then her communications-bracelet chirped. She straightened and held it up at chest level, still regarding the human. "Yes?"

Tovan's voice came through the bracelet. "Something interesting just showed up. I think you want to finish your walk now."

"Indeed. I'll be right there." She lowered her wrist and began to turn.

Drake lifted a hand to her arm and she looked back at him. He said, "Six to twelve hours before it vanishes again. According to reports."

"And it reappears in two days?"

"Twelve to forty-eight hours, and doesn't seem to map to how long it stayed, either."

She twitched her single eyebrow, then turned away and strode off, leaving the human to prod at the small, coin-shaped devices left on the table. One disintegrated beneath his touch, apparently unexpectedly, from his lifted eyebrows.

* * *

When Ten strode onto the bridge, the screen now showed another ship. The small Borg stood in front of the display and contemplated it. "Has anyone described this thing to anyone else?" she asked.

"Er, no, Commander," Tovan said, exchanging glances with the other crew members.

"Good. Fix the image in your minds. How you'd describe it. Just in case this is something... odd. Mutable."

After a few more glances, everyone stared at the display screen for a moment.

Ten said, "I perceive a ship, approximately the same dimensions as a typical freight-hauler." She glanced around to nods. "Except...?"

Tovan said, "It doesn't have the typical cargo-compartments showing. Everything's wrapped inside the hull."

"This matches what everyone else sees?" Ten looked around more, and collected firm nods and murmured agreement. She went and sat in her chair. "And both what I see now, and what I recorded. Good. That suggests the thing isn't a purely mental construct. Or if it is, it's consistent. How did we find it?"

"That's the disturbing part, Commander," Nirel said. "First the space there was empty, and then it wasn't. No burst of energy to announce it. No sign that it'd been anywhere else. Temperature matches what it should be for its material and position around the star. I don't have a good sample for the orbit, but the projection is that it'd be stable around the star, and it's far enough from the asteroid belt, it probably wouldn't crash into anything."

"Hm." Ten tapped her fingers on the arms of her command chair. "According to my information, it should linger for at least six hours, up to twelve, and then vanish, reappearing after no more than a couple of days. I am not sure I trust the reports this came from. Any lifesigns on it?"

"No, Commander." Nirel said. "Though it does seem to have minimal life support -- or at least, enough that there's a gaseous atmosphere inside it, rather than a frozen, vacuum-based one."

"That probably rules out tossing a tribble in with a camera strapped to it, if the thing would freeze before it got anywhere interesting."

"There might be enough starlight being absorbed to compensate," the science officer said, doubtfully.

"No one goes over there in less than a full suit," Ten stated.

"So we're going over there?" Tovan said.

"Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes." She regarded the display impassively, then twitched a half-smile. "Why don't we call those journalists to the bridge? They can take pictures."

Tovan muttered something about a shift-change, then said, "Yes, Commander. I'll send for them." He tapped on his console and murmured at it.

"In the meantime," said Ten, "let's creep up next to it with our shields up and see if we can get any better scans. If it has a working power-source, say. Or mechanical defenses. Or body-parts left behind from the source of the reports."

"Yes, Commander," Konratra said from the helm, while behind Ten, Nirel made a face before turning back to her console.

Ten tapped the comm-button on her chair. "Veril, are you busy?"

The Reman woman's voice came back. "Not terribly. Need me up there?"

"Yes, I think so."

"On my way."

Ten tapped more buttons. Satra's voice said, "Sickbay. Yes?"

"We may be going to do something stupid soon, and you'll probably want to come along. Do you want to come up to the bridge to see what the stupid is before we start suiting up?"

"Why did I ever think joining the Republic fleet would be nice and boring?"

"You did?" Ten blinked her eye at the chair-microphone in surprise. "I thought you wanted to do something instead of being pushed around and hiding out with the Suliban."

"Close enough. I'll be up there shortly. Sickbay out."

Ten slid her fingers across the chair's buttons and sat back in it -- which was when the doors to the turbolift swished open, and her Bajoran officer led Nyx and Joseph onto the bridge.

Nyx, as per her usual behavior, was rubbernecking sufficiently to be a traffic hazard for her assistant, who somehow managed to avoid bumping into her. Thydel moved over to Ten's chair. "Thought I'd come along," he said. "A ship?"

"Derelict," Ten replied. "But we're probably going to wind up poking around on it, even though it appeared out of nowhere a short time ago."

"When you say 'out of nowhere'..." Thydel said.

"Ask Nirel. I believe the short answer is 'poof.' " In illustration, Ten flared her fingers out like a stage magician.

"Will you be taking one of those journalists along?" he asked more quietly, looking over at where Nyx had gravitated to Tovan's chair and was attempting to ask nominally journalistic questions.

"Maybe," Ten said, though her slantwise look was more at Nyx's male assistant, who was doing a reasonable job looking bored.

The lift's doors whooshed open again, with Satra and Veril emerging.

Ten stood. "This is getting crowded. Tovan, brief everyone, please. Miss D'Cruz, Mister Sanders, if you would join me in my ship-office? I can bring up the display's image on one of my desk holoscreens and answer questions." She gestured, and led the way off the bridge.

Nyx gawked happily at Ten's office just as much as she'd done at the bridge, winding up all but pressing her nose to the terrarium in one corner. "Where are the plants from?" she asked.

"New Romulus, mostly," Ten replied, sitting at her desk while holographic screens rose eagerly from it. "Others are cultivars that originally came from the one that was destroyed, though. The botanists set it up, but I requested ones with medicinal uses, in case we might need them for emergencies, such as being cut off from Sickbay."

"Practical," said Joseph, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Ten regarded him coolly. "A trait Borg are known for."

Nyx turned around and hurried herself into the chair beside her fellow human. "So what can you tell us about the ship out there?" she asked eagerly.

"Not much, so far," Ten replied, tapping on the desk-console. One of the holograms shifted to replicating the viewscreen from the bridge. "It's not a known design. It appeared, according to Nirel, out of nowhere. Reports suggest it appears and vanishes like this... frequently. It does not appear to have a telepathic component to make people perceive it differently."

Joseph pondered the image with mild interest, and no twitching at having his words summarized back to him. Nyx looked at the hologram with more excitement. "Are you going to be going onto it?"

"Probably. We will, of course, discuss leaving a recording device on it and backing off, to see what happens when it vanishes. But in the end, a machine can only do so much. Even the Borg require biological components to maintain the Collective."

"What else do the reports say?" Nyx asked.

"For the moment, I am treating that as classified," Ten said, without glancing at the source of her information. "However, I am cautiously open to allowing you to monitor and record our investigation into this vanishing-and-appearing derelict ship. I cannot promise the data will not be classified afterward, as that will be decided by those above me."

Nyx clasped her hands in front of her chest and gazed at the small Romulan as if she'd offered treasures beyond imagining. "That would be _wonderful!"_

Borg-calm, Ten said, "You're welcome. I will need to discuss the matter with my senior officers, once they've all been briefed. If you wish to attend... Perhaps in a less distracting outfit?" She regarded Nyx's current array of fashions and colors with a bland judgment. "More importantly, the perfume might trouble my Caitian, in close quarters."

"I'll run down and grab a shower right away," Nyx said, apparently refusing to take offense at any implications. As she turned for the door, she added, "Joseph, find out where we can put cameras!"

Ten watched her go, and when the doors swished shut, twitched her gaze to the remaining human. "Now, Drake, produce these reports, whose names I have been taking in vain, before we start discussing treaty violations again."


	7. Cautious Precautions

_Ten stands on the bridge, looking over Nirel's shoulder along with Veril as the science officer explains something._

"Commander's log, timestamped. We have been here for eight days, monitoring the mysterious vanishing derelict. Miss D'Cruz is bored with our caution. Drake -- excuse me, 'Sanders' -- thinks I should just accept the information he's fed me. I think if he wants me to do that, he should let me assimilate him. It is an impasse. And so we performed our own tests."

_A descriptive montage unfolds._

"First, we sent probes to attach to the outside of the ship, establishing that it was indeed solid. The ship vanished, to its own schedule. The probes did not, and did not register any unusual energy signatures. This matched the information provided.

"When the ship next appeared, it had not progressed appreciably in its orbit around the star, though it immediately resumed orbiting; Nirel has been searching desperately for chroniton particles. Meanwhile, we sent probes again, this time in an attempt to cut through places in the hull, or access the airlocks. The hull was impervious. The airlocks -- both of them -- opened easily, but the drones were too large to do more than view the interior lock, which was large enough for a standard away team. We dispatched two more probes with smaller sensor packages, and left those in the airlocks -- one package per airlock. One airlock, we allowed to close. The other, we held open with the exterior probe. When the ship next vanished, the sensor package in the opened airlock was left behind. The other vanished with the ship, and we could detect no transmissions from it."

_The montage shifts, briefly, to Drake -- eyebrows up in apparent interest or mild surprise -- while Ten points to the remaining sensor package being collected by its probe._

"Still no energy readings. Nirel had to be ordered to go to Sickbay for a sleep aid. When the ship returned, the opened airlock had closed, and the other sensor package still was not transmitting. We retrieved it with a probe, and discovered its energy had been drained enough to place it in a 'hibernation' mode, although its internal clock recorded only a few seconds had passed. With great solemnity, we have placed a tribble, in a tribble-sized environmental containment unit, into one of the airlocks. May the Universe have mercy upon that tiny life."

_The ball of fur coos in its plastic container, as darkness falls around it._

"As the pattern of the derelict's appearances and disappearances matches the durations Drake reported, we are preparing to board the ship when it next appears -- though depending on what happens to the tribble, we may leave again with haste."

_The standard away team -- Ten, Tovan, Teilia, Veril, and Satra -- suit up in a shuttle. A male Romulan sits in the pilot's seat, watching over his shoulder._

* * *

In a dark airlock... the doors opened slowly, and helmet-mounted flashlights shone inside. First inside was the shortest vacuum-suit, feet magnetically adhering to the floorplates. Her face illuminated by the faint gleam of readouts, Ten knelt beside the tribble-cage that had been affixed there.

"Is it dead?" Tovan asked, voice distorted slightly by the suit-communicators.

"Not yet, but the power on the life support is drained. Veril, the spare power-cell?"

The younger Reman joined her commander in kneeling beside the cage, plugging a small box into it. Lights came on along the edges of the container and the tribble inside twitched. Ten tapped a control panel on the cage's side. "Data transmitting again."

"For all the good it will do," Teilia said.

"Indeed. Everyone in?" When the other four confirmed they were, Ten tapped on a control panel that flickered dimly. Slowly, the exterior airlock doors closed. There was a faint hiss for a few seconds, and the doors into the ship opened.

A corridor stretched out in front of them, unlit, but with pale walls, floor, and ceiling. As Ten stepped through, head twitching to take in all the visual data possible, blue lights along the floor and ceiling... flickered and settled on a dim glow.

As they slowly made their way down the hall, Teilia said, "I wonder if the power-plant keeps getting knocked back to barely nothing, and then tries to come on-line again each time the ship reappears."

Veril replied, "It would explain why there's _any_ power on this thing."

"Nasty trap," Tovan added, looking around nearly as twitchily as Ten.

The hallway stopped at a cross-corridor intersection. Ten stepped into it first, looking in both directions. "The engines were that way," she said, pointing. "So the bridge would presumably be in the other direction, if they're like most species."

"Unless they were a sensible race," Teilia said, "and their engineers are running everything."

"That'll be the day," Veril said, as they followed Ten towards the nose of the ship.

They passed another cross-corridor, to the port side, looking down it and seeing two doors, one on either side. Satra, a tricorder in her hand, said, "Large spaces to either side. I think they're cargo compartments."

"And yet with no cargo locks to access them," Ten said, and they moved on. Another cross-corridor, this time to both sides, appeared, with a door beyond it.

A small bipedal figure skipped across the visible space, nearly glowing in the suits' flashlights, frilly clothing fluttering.

Ten disengaged the magnetics in her boots and pushed off, twisting and re-engaging the magnetics as she hit the wall next to the intersection. Now near the ceiling, she looked down the hall where the apparition had gone.

"Commander!" Tovan said, from behind the others. "Be careful! Something might be chasing it!"

Ten twisted to look in the other direction, then jump-leapt to the floor again. "That," she said, "was a mental construct."

"I certainly can't scan anything," Satra said. "...I think." She tried to rub at her face and encountered the helmet instead.

"You think?" Tovan said, coming up close to her, but twisting to keep an eye on the corridor behind them.

"It's... like trying to read something in a dream. The symbols twist." She rubbed at the faceplate, then stowed her tricorder in its pouch on the outside of the suit. She lifted her hands. "I need this thing off."

Veril grabbed her wrists before Satra could get at the helmet's fasteners. "Not in here you don't! The atmosphere must be icy!"

"Oh, right..." Satra lowered her arms, started to raise them again, and took out her tricorder instead, fiddling with it aimlessly.

Ten looked between the door just beyond the cross corridor, and Satra. "We're going back," she said.

Teilia said, "That's probably the bridge right there. We could--"

"Something is affecting Satra." Ten reached out to turn her Second Engineer around by the arm, herding the taller woman back the way they'd come. "We don't know how quickly it might start affecting anyone else. I'm not going to risk any of us for mere curiosity. We're going back."

"So close," the elder Reman said wistfully -- but she turned and began heading back, while Veril prodded Satra into motion.

The return trip was entirely uneventful, though they hastened and Tovan kept a hand ready to grab for the pistol he wore outside his suit. At the airlock, Ten said, "Satra, Teilia, why don't you grab the tribble-cage? We'll want to run some tests on it when we get back."

The two women knelt to release the cage from its magnetic attachments. Ten stood near the interior door of the airlock, glancing between her crew with her organic left eye, and the corridor with her Borg eyepiece.

It was Tovan who said, "Ten..."

She turned to face the corridor entirely.

At the far end, where the nose-to-tail hallway intersected the one leading to the airlock, it seemed a small, pale being peeked around the corner. Its features were vague, but sharpened into a child's face, with its hair in a shaggy approximation of the short, Romulan cut that Ten wore.

Behind her, having stepped to her shoulder, Tovan breathed, "Rinna..."

"Hair color?" Ten snapped out.

Shaken from his staring, he said, "Black," as if startled that Ten might have forgotten his younger sister's appearance.

"I see white or pale blonde." She put out an arm to keep him from passing, stepped fully into the airlock, and twitched her head to the side enough to see to tap the controls.

Slowly, the doors slid together. The child emerged from behind the corner and stood watching them, with bare legs and a dress of rags, until the doors were completely closed.

The other doors opened and Ten herded everyone across the gap of vacuum to the shuttle's force-screen lock. Inside, Ten said, "Oochon, get us back to the ship. Then we're all going to be quarantined for a while, though I doubt it will come to anything."

"Yes, Commander," the pilot said, and turned to the controls.

After they'd pulled their helmets off, Tovan put a hand on his commander's shoulder. "Ten, why did you ask about hair color?"

"I could only see the thing with my left eye." She reached up and tapped her eyepiece. "My recordings show nothing was ever there."


	8. A Brief Chat

Ten paced in her quarters. They were cozy by Federation standards, luxurious by Klingon ones, and probably peasant-like to Star Empire commanders. Nevertheless, she had one sitting room, with a 'fresher off the side, a small bedchamber in the other direction -- and enough room to pace and make her shoulder-sash flutter.

The door chimed, then opened, and Tovan's voice said, "I've brought him, Commander."

Ten turned as Drake and her first officer entered the room. "Thank you. Subcommander. Stay, please."

"Yes, Commander," Tovan said, and took up a position by the room's door, arms folded.

Drake twitched a slight glance to the Romulan behind him before saying, "Well, here I am, sir."

"Indeed." Ten mirrored her first officer's pose, though drumming her gloved fingers on one upper arm. "And did your reports mention that you were sending us onto a _ghost_ ship?"

This time, Drake's glance Tovan-wards was more irritated. "Ah..."

"He is my first officer, my best friend, and he knows about you anyway. Talk, Drake. The _ship_ doesn't change in people's perceptions, but that little ghost-child does. And I can't record it." She touched her eyepiece again. "To my Borg sight, it doesn't exist. The question is whether that means it can't affect me -- or whether I just can't see it coming from this side. And if you know any answers, I want them now."

The human spread his hands. "There you have it. It doesn't appear on cameras or video transmissions. It looks different to everyone, usually like a child of their own species, or even a family member. It skips around -- seems to want to draw people away from the group, or watch them from around corners."

"And the urge to take off one's suit-helmet?"

Drake's expression went ever so slightly grim. "Three away-team members went to Sickbay for that."

"How long did they stay on the ship before that happened?"

"A few minutes. And the ones who _didn't_ take their helmets off still felt the urge."

"Did you send androids or photonics in?"

"Too much of a risk, people thought. If the ship vanished with them aboard, their power would be drained. Might kill 'em."

"And yet," Ten said, icy and calm, "you sent a Borg onto that ship."

"The other issue was that they couldn't see the ghost," Drake added. "And no one's sure whether or not it can do anything itself."

Ten frowned at him. "What else is in the ship? It looks like it should be a cargo-ship, but there's no way to get large cargo-containers in and out, that I can see."

"Did you go into any of the other rooms?" Drake asked.

Tovan said, "We didn't even make it to the bridge."

Drake grunted. He paused, then apparently decided that perhaps Ten's patience was thin enough already. "Freeze-tubes. As far as anyone saw, the 'cargo' compartments are full of freeze tubes and the machinery to get them stacked from floor to ceiling."

Tovan asked, "What about quarters for the crew?"

Drake shook his head. "They stopped investigating after the second away-team nearly had a suit-stripping party five steps after leaving the airlock."

Ten said, "Did the _first_ team make it to the bridge?"

Again, the human hesitated, then said, "Yes. But they couldn't get anything out of the computer systems. Too little power. Too much of a time limit. Security locked. Plus their encryption expert started trying to pull his gloves off, to get a 'better feel,' reportedly."

The small, pale commander's mouth twisted in a crooked smile. "Ah. So _that's_ why you want a Borg there. And not one of Starfleet's supply, for some reason?"

"That's classified, sir."

"Is it." She narrowed her eye. "Does that mean that I'm considered expendable, or that you fear what would happen if you used one of my Starfleet sisters and something happened to her?"

"We hoped Romulan investigators would have additional insights, due to your familiarity with cloaking technology," Drake said, too promptly for something that had been classified a moment ago.

Ten twitched her eyebrow, and let the discrepancy pass. "Yes, we looked for signs of cloaking. Nothing. Nirel's best guess is that it's hiccupping in time. After being on the ship... I'd wonder if it's a malfunctioning FTL drive."

"The original ship suspected Devidians," Drake supplied.

"Devidians don't change their appearance based on who's looking at them," Ten said.

Drake shrugged.

Ten regarded him, drumming her fingers on her upper arm. "Were it up to me, I would compile my reports and take them back to Command, with a request for specialized equipment. Remote-controlled machines, fabricated to specifications, to start. I'd also want a sciences and engineering team, and an entirely different ship, with equipment for making more remotely-operated devices to deal with whatever the first ones found. They could spend months out here, and the _Kinaen_ could get back to chasing pirates, thwarting Tal Shiar, and otherwise behaving like a _heavy destroyer_ and not a science vessel."

"And if the derelict just stopped coming back?"

"Then it's irrelevant. Station a probe in the system in case it appears again in the future, and move on."

"Seems Starfleet has more _interest_ in unusual phenomenon than the Republic does, then," Drake said, with a hint of disdain.

Ten snorted. "I'm a Borg, Federation agent, and one without expendable drones to throw away. The _only_ things of interest on that derelict are the drive -- assuming that's what's making it appear and vanish -- and the ghost. The risk to benefit ratio is unfavorable."

"I'm afraid I must insist, as per the treaties--"

Tovan interrupted. "She just said--"

Ten held up a hand, silencing him. "Two conditions, Drake. First, as the time-window for this appearance of the ship is shrinking unacceptably, we will be studying the tribble that was on it, and monitoring my away team's condition until the ship appears again. Second..." She smiled at him. "The next away team will be two people. Me. And you."

Drake's impassive expression suggested perhaps the faintest bit of consternation. "I'm just Joseph Sanders, a video man."

"You're the sneaky Federation agent, Drake. Find a way to escape your dupe -- or partner in deception -- and be ready to suit up when the derelict reappears. Dismissed."

Drake might or might not have contested that, but Tovan took him by the arm and steered him out the door.


	9. And Then There Were Two...

Once again, the outer airlock door slowly opened. Three suited figures were beyond it. The smallest waved one of the others on, then paused as the remaining one put his helmet against hers.

In a private suit-to-suit transmission, Tovan said, "I don't think you should go with just him."

Ten replied, "I'm protecting my crew, and saving Eight's career if anything happens to me. I'd take revenge if she or Fourteen got hurt by Drake's machinations. She'd go after him if I get hurt."

Tovan scowled. "I'm going to be here, suited up, until you get back."

Ten tapped a control bracelet on the wrist of her suit. "Open channel to all three suits," she said. Then she patted Tovan's arm and moved into the airlock.

Once again, it cycled, slowly, with the barest puffs of atmosphere coming into the chamber before the interior doors could be opened. Once again, the lights attempted to come on in the ship corridor as the pair left the airlock.

Drake betrayed no anxiety beyond a normal wariness. Ten's face showed even less emotion. They walked cautiously towards the front of the ship, with Ten murmuring their location now and then, for Tovan's benefit. Their heavy, magnetized steps made little sound in the thin atmosphere.

And, once again, the little apparition dashed past them just before they reached the intersection that held the bridge's door.

"So what do you see, Drake?" Ten said.

"Didn't get a good look," he replied. "Small. Pale. Slightly glowing."

"The odd thing is that I see it with hair and both eyes," Ten remarked. "I would have thought I'd see a small Borg, released prematurely from its maturation chamber."

Neither one had stepped forward yet.

Drake continued to stand there. "Maybe it's tapping off different expectations."

"I was assimilated as a very young child. If it's tapping expectations, they're from the others in my Thirty. So why do I see pointed ears and wing-cut hair?" She tapped her helmet's faceplate, where her own white hair was in the most traditional of Romulan styles, like an extreme widow's peak -- or, perhaps, an abstract of a bird with wings arched in flight.

"Were you the only Romulan there?" Drake slowly edged a foot forward, awkwardly overcoming the magnets in the boot.

"No. But there were humans, Andorians, Vulcans, and a Klingon, among other species I have only numerical designations for." Thoughtfully, Ten lifted one of her own feet and transferred her "down" to a wall, slowly wandering up it, her body at right angles to Drake's. "Why did I not imprint on the memories of one of those?"

"I don't know," Drake said, irritation tinging his voice. He looked down the hallway that the ghost-girl had started from, while Ten checked the other. He continued, "Maybe one of the other Romulans was a parent. Fresher memories."

Ten was silent for a moment, detaching her feet from the wall and pushing off the ceiling to land in the center of the intersection. "An interesting possibility. None of my Thirty ever had reason to access the databanks regarding where we had come from. Thirteen's father was known to have been on the same ship that she was taken from, according to her other relatives. Presumably I had a parent or parents as well, who might have been assimilated rather than killed." Her voice was diffident.

Drake shot her a look, then all but stamped forward to pull open the door.

It did indeed debouch onto an alien bridge. Flat console-tables lined the walls, with bench-style seats between them and the walls, to show that they all faced inwards to the center. Something remotely similar to a transporter pad, in appearance, occupied the center of the room. There was no obvious viewscreen.

Drake stepped into the room and glanced over his shoulder. Ten followed him, gaze darting about in her usual Borgish twitchiness. "Interesting commentary on the species and its willingness to have anyone able to watch them from behind," she said. "Which one is the command station?"

"Your guess is as good as ours," the human replied. He pointed at the one nearest the door. "That's the one they tried to crack, the first time."

"I assume you don't want me to give it a similar try?" Ten smiled slightly.

"You're the one who doesn't want to spend time on this ship. Commander."

"So I am." She held up her left hand, and used the right to pull the suit's glove tight. "Let me line up the glove-ports... There." Thin, charcoal-black nanoprobes extended through dimples in the fabric. Without fanfare, she set her hand flat on the nearest console, fingers spread, and the probes thrust into it.

The console's surface flickered beneath her palm: pallid colors of pink and blue with occasional warmer yellow. The hints of a holographic screen attempted to form at the console's edge, with distorted, wobbling alien characters upon it.

Ten hissed and swayed, catching herself with her other hand on the console. "Greedy thing," she said. "You'd drain me dry to wake yourself."

Tovan's voice came over the suit-comm. _"Ten, are you all right?"_

"Prepare sugar-water and a charging unit on the shuttle if you can," she said, then focused on the console again, cooing, "Lower your defenses, pet. Resistance is futile. Your unique data will be downloaded and added to my storage."

Tovan grumbled, _"If she's still doing this when she gets back, Fed..."_

"She doesn't do it normally?" Drake muttered back. He looked around and tried to swipe a hand across his face -- encountering the helmet's faceplate instead. "Dammit, sweating. Something wrong with the temp control on this thing?"

_"Shouldn't be. Remote diagnostics... It should be comfortable for humans."_ He added, _"Receiving data transmission from Ten now, for the external storage."_

"What's in it?" Drake asked, clearly trying to focus.

After a pause, Tovan's voice reported, _"Looks like it's still encrypted."_

"What? Why?" the human demanded.

_"I don't know! Maybe because she's one person and doesn't have an entire cube behind her to crack the encryption in a few seconds? We're getting the information. We can crack it back on the **Kinaen**."_

"Good," Drake said. "Good." He looked around, batting at his faceplate again as he tried to swipe his wrist over his forehead. He started to fumble at the neck of the suit, then yanked his hands away and glared at them. More firmly, he sat down at one of the benches, though it was too low and close to its console to let him swing his legs under it. He stared at Ten, fists clenched on his knees.

Understated expressions flickered across the small ex-Borg's face, even as the console's symbols and light patterns shifted beneath her glove. Whatever she was doing to the computer was clearly interesting to her -- but from the outside, like watching one half of a private comm-call, soundless and baffling.

Something caught Drake's attention, and he jerked his head around.

Across the console from him stood the small apparition, barely a head taller than the console itself. Glowing, pale. Wavering in appearance until it appeared as a small child -- possibly male -- with round, human ears and Romulan-cut hair. It gazed up at him levelly.

Drake stared. Out loud, he said, "It's in front of me."

_"What is?"_

"The energy construct."

_"If Ten's eyepiece doesn't see it, it's not energy."_

"Brainwave construct, then," Drake snapped. The child's form wavered, and something in its expression seemed wary. In a flatter voice, Drake added, "I'm not calling it a ghost."

_"What's it doing?"_

"Staring at me."

_"Does it seem hostile?"_

Drake's mouth shaped a silent _no_ , shaking his head slightly with the word.

The child-form raised its hand and pointed to a spot on the console.

_"Drake?"_

Mouth and throat working as if he tried to speak, Drake's own fist slowly lifted from his knee. Uncurled. Pressed a finger to the indicated place.

When he lifted his finger, the console had a softly glowing blue circle on it.

_"Your suit reports everything's fine, Drake. What's going on?"_

The child-being pointed to another spot. Slowly, but less-so than before, Drake's finger found it. Again, a blue dot flared beneath the touch.

_"Are you being threatened? Is Ten? Answer!"_

Another glowing finger pointing. Another suited one pressing. Another blue circle, glowing more brightly.

_"Ten! Ten, what's going on?!"_

The ex-Borg's attention to the console became less fixed. She frowned. Made a distracted _mm?_ noise.

_"TEN!"_

She looked up, immediately twitching into full scan mode, then jerked her head to stare at Drake as he -- guided by the glowing apparition -- pressed spots on the other console.

Ten's probes retracted from the panel in front of her as she whipped around. "Drake! Stop! That's engineering's!"

He touched the console a final time. The glowing ghost-child turned its head, smiled faintly, and became ribbons of light that winked out. Drake sat there, slowly lifting his head to focus on the little Romulan who grabbed his shoulder.

"We've got to get out _now!"_ Ten snapped, pulling at him. "You've activated the FTL drive!"

"Wha-?" He stumbled to his feet and hastened after her, as she still had hold of his suit-sleeve. They ran awkwardly, with the magnetics unwilling to release fast enough for a true stride.

"The FTL drive is preparing for jump!" She added, "Tovan, get the shuttle _away_! If we get there in time, you can pick us up from freefall!"

_"Hurry, Ten!"_ Tovan said, voice anguished.

In the tone of a man who would like to be swearing, Drake snarled, "Why didn't it go after _you_?"

"Borg eye can't see it," Ten snapped back as they ran, "so Borg brain can't be controlled by it? Elements! How should _I_ know?!"

"You knew that was the engineering console!"

"Ship was nearly gloating about it!"

"The thing's _alive?"_

"It's _complicated!"_ She twisted to head down the corridor to the airlock.

"Complicated!" Drake spat, almost disbelieving, as he followed.

Ten didn't bother answering. She pushed off in a jump, magnetics disengaged, and fended off the ceiling with one arm, alighting on the wall next to the airlock control panel. She smacked at it.

It slowly began to open.

There was a flash of light.

* * *

_In the shuttle, still suited up and trying to clip a space-tether to his belt, Tovan watched the viewscreen over the pilot's shoulder. "Come on, come on," he growled, staring at the closed airlock door._

_The alien ship vanished._


	10. No One Is Pleased

Two suited figures stood before doors that opened into nothingness. Blackness like an oil slick, with pastel aurora rippling past occasionally.

After a moment, the taller one said, "Thought that tribble'd experienced no time."

"The clock in the cage experienced no time," the shorter one said. "The tribble didn't die, and didn't seem to have aged appreciably."

"But we're looking out here, and have been ever since we picked ourselves off the floor and cycled the airlock."

"And you want some kind of, what's the human term, 'sciencey technobabble' to explain it?"

The human looked down at her. "Yeah. I would."

The Romulan shrugged. "My current theory, as of a few seconds ago, is that the drive shoves the ship into a parallel universe that is essentially uninhabited, and has different laws of physics. Not different enough to kill tribbles, or us, but enough that time is doing strange things. Or energy is. Perhaps it's a shortcut around the old theory that for certain effects, you can know how fast you're going, or where you are, but not both at once. If the universe doesn't have time, it can't tell how fast you're going. Poof. A faster than light drive that isn't warp."

"If it doesn't have time..."

"Then everything we do happens at once. And perhaps it does, once we re-emerge into our universe, and that's why the power was drained on anything we left inside this ship. You asked for a theory, and that's the one that seems to fit the observed facts."

He grunted, and faced the Nothingness again. "Are you sure you're not actually a Vulcan?"

"No one is sure I'm not actually a Vulcan," she said, serenely. "But since all Romulans were once actually Vulcans, it's really a pointless distinction. And I am certainly Borg."

He gave another grunt. "So now what?"

"Suits have a couple days of water and nutrient bars." Ten sighed. "What _I_ need is a power-source. Nutrient bars aren't going to keep everything running for very long. Too complex to digest." She reached out and tapped the console, and the doors into Nothngness slowly began to shut.

"You say that as if it makes sense," Drake muttered, turning and clomping the pace necessary to stand beside the airlock's inner doors.

"Not my fault you didn't do your research on me, Feddie agent." She also turned, gliding more smoothly across the airlock's floor.

" _Feddie_?"

"Snark, sarcasm, and insults are part of my cultural heritage." With the inner doors entirely open, she stepped out into the hall, which was still only dimly lit. "I'm going to look for engineering."

"It would probably be safer to stay put and wait to emerge." But he walked after her.

"I'm not sure we'll emerge where we left. You were doing something to the engineering console that activated the FTL drive." She turned stern-wards at the cross-corridor, her suit's helmet-light cutting through the dimness. "Hm. No dust this way, either. Did the earlier teams investigate both directions?"

"Not really." Drake followed her. "They went for the probable bridge first, found it, and started experiencing the mental effects. When the next team ran into trouble..."

"No one wanted to go prowling. Logical." She prowled down the hall.

"What happens if we start experiencing the mental effects again?"

"You discover that your suit isn't opening without an access code, which I have neglected to give you."

He stopped short. "You... You little..."

She continued on, twisting briefly to look over her shoulder. "Mine are a terrible people, Franklin Drake, and I have grown most fond of them." Facing forward, she added, "But you should be careful of what you say. Should we reappear where the _Kinaen_ can retrieve us, it will probably take my intervention to keep my first officer from strangling you."

* * *

On the bridge of the _Kinaen_ , Tovan had his forearms crossed over the back of the empty command-chair, and his head bowed. His fists were clenched. When he spoke, his voice was tight and dejected. "Anything, Nirel?"

"The same nothing as every other time it vanished in front of our sensors, Subcommander." The science officer's voice was tired.

He nodded, and reached out to tap the control-surface on the chair's arm. "F'rul? Any luck with the encryption on what the commander transmitted?"

From the chair's speakers, a male Caitian-accented voice replied, "The programs are still running, sir. The good news is that I don't think their encryption technology was better than our decryption programs. I should have this within a couple days at most."

"Tell me the moment you get something. Even if it's the middle of the night."

"I promise, sir. F'rul out."

"Bridge out," Tovan sighed, perhaps needlessly, and gave the chair-arm a final tap.

From the side of the bridge came the sound of a turbolift's doors whooshing open. Tovan didn't look up until Nyx appeared at his shoulder, putting sympathetic -- or worried -- hands on his upper arm. Then he tensed and flinched slightly as he looked at her, and shot a glare at the security woman behind her.

Misha shrugged, grimaced slightly, and said, "Captain'd said we were supposed to let her film stuff, and what with..." She shrugged again, grimaced more, and finished, "So, well, yeah."

Tovan turned his attention back to Nyx, who was still sympathetically draped at (if not quite _on_ ) him. "Miss D'Cruz, I'm very sorry--"

"Joseph knew what he was doing," she said, firm and brave. "He told me he'd managed to nag your captain -- your commander -- into letting him go and film the investigation, but she wouldn't let us both go onto that horrible ship."

"I'm surprised you didn't overrule your assistant," Tovan said, with the air of someone whose mouth is on automatic pilot.

"Well..." Nyx noticed she was still quasi-clinging to him and straightened, wringing her hands in front of her. "Your cap-- commander doesn't seem to like me very much. So I didn't think she'd let me go even if I tried. And if I'd made a fuss, she might not have let _either_ of us go, and then there would've been no footage at all."

Puzzled, Tovan said, "I didn't see a hovercam with him..."

"He said there wasn't any gravity on the ship, and hovercams can get lost if they don't know which way "down" is. So he had a little headcam, that would fit under the suit helmet."

"So anything he was looking at..." Tovan said.

"Well, yes?" Nyx looked mystified.

"Was he transmitting?" He pushed himself up and looked over his shoulder. "Nirel, was there another transmission from the derelict beside Ten's?"

Nyx said, "Yes, of course!" and hard on that, Nirel said, "Transmission verified in the logs, sir. Civilian-level encryption... I'm sorry, sir. I hadn't looked at anything but the location the transmission was coming from, and that it was on a normal frequency. I thought it was something the commander was doing."

Tovan pointed at the science officer. "Don't assume, next time." He looked at Nyx. "Do you have a decrypted version or are we going to have to reconstruct it from our scan logs?"

"I can probably get into his pad, if he hasn't changed the password recently," Nyx said. "Will it help?"

Tovan looked at her seriously. "It might. From Ten's comment, he was near an engineering terminal. Maybe it will give us a clue."

Nyx caught her breath -- perhaps from the small hope presented, or perhaps because it was the first time he'd looked at her with that much focus, rather than with the expression of a man trying not to show too obviously that he'd rather be anywhere but where he was. "I'll go get it immediately!" she promised, bit her lip, and whirled away.


	11. Unsettling Discoveries

The door in the center of the ship hadn't wanted to open. A panel near it, however, had given access to an emergency winch. It was connected to a set of gears, their teeth interlocking like clockwork. As only one person could easily get at the thing, Ten was down on one knee, cranking the door open. It was going slowly.

"Low-strength, smaller species," she commented. "Two of them could work at this, and the required force is being compensated for by all the other gears."

"You never explained about the ship being alive," Drake pointed out, leaning on his elbow against the wall above her.

"It's complicated."

"You said that already."

"It didn't get any simpler." She adjusted her grip and continued rotating the winch. "It's probably not sapient, like an android or photonic. Or if it was, it didn't want to tell me."

Drake looked around nervously. "Reassuring."

She continued, "But even the Collective permits certain emotions. Interest. Greed. Desire for the Borgish aesthetic. Annoyance and frustration. Satisfaction."

"Gloating?"

"Gloating is satisfaction taken beyond permissible limits. But it's... recognizable."

"Why would a ship be pleased about... whatever the hell I was doing at that console?" He put his back to the wall, the better to keep watch, and absently bumped the back of his wrist against his faceplate, trying to wipe at his forehead.

"When we get to engineering, I'll see if I can do more than get an empathic connection," Ten said, a bit acerbically. "I didn't know I was going to need to mindmeld with the _fvadt_ thing."

"The..." He rubbed at the faceplate with his palm, then frowned at his glove. "The first ship had a telepath -- Deltan, I think. No sapient minds detected."

"If Starfleet would like me to research the creation of immediately-liberated Borg to interface with potentially-sapient alien technology, Starfleet can file the paperwork with Command."

Drake grunted, glancing from the hall to Ten's progress, then back again -- abruptly, gaze fixing on something.

Still kneeling to work the gear-like winch, Ten added, "Possibly it's just sentient, like a smart pet. But don't ask me if the ghost is involved, because I can't tell."

As she spoke, Drake moved away, stalking something -- creeping predatorily towards the last cross-corridor they'd passed. His magnetic boots made faint ticking noises in the thin remnants of atmosphere within the ship.

When he didn't respond, Ten paused and turned her head in time to see him lunge around the corner. She surged to her feet, clomping swiftly after him. "Elements! Am I going to have to assimilate your suit to keep you out of trouble?"

She rounded the corner herself, catching Drake slipping through a half-open door. Cursing under her breath in at least three languages, she followed.

Instead of the expected cargo bay full of stasis pods, the other side of the door held... a narrower hallway, with smoke-glass walls and archways leading off the sides. The arches had similarly translucent lattice-work blocking them. Indistinct structures showed through the walls.

Drake stood in front of one archway, looking down.

Ten clomped, irritatedly, to his side, then followed his gaze.

The bodies were small, twisted, mummified things, coated with frost and dressed as if for Risa, with pastel ribbons tied around their wrists. They curled against each other and the lattice that blocked the hallway from their room. Their features were indistinct and distorted; high-placed, double-pointed ears were the only recognizable hint of species.

With a sigh, Ten pulled her tricorder from the suit pocket and knelt, scanning the small corpses.

"They look like children," Drake said.

"I won't be able to confirm that unless we find smaller or larger ones." She put the tricorder away. "It's no species I remember."

"You know them all?"

"No. I only remember the ones that had been relevant to my situation. Anything else, I would have accessed from the Collective if I'd run across it." She stood. "Why are you in here?"

He made vague gestures. "The... ghost. I saw it run around the corner. I... Following it was important. For some reason."

"I'm surprised Starfleet lets _you_ run around like this if you're normally so susceptible to psionic manipulation."

Drake said, not quite gritting his teeth, "Not. Normally."

"And yet it targets you twice." She shook her head within the helmet. "Shall we return to the other door, or do you wish to explore this... residential section?"

"You're leaving it up to me?" He gave her a searching look. "Why?"

"The ghost wants something, apparently. If it wants to lead you into a trap, I'd rather find out while we're both relatively clear-minded."

He grunted and looked around, striding along the corridor to the next lattice-covered archway. Ten followed, and they both gazed down at another pile of frozen, withered bodies. Ten pulled out the tricorder again, knelt again, and this time said, "They're all around the same age as the prior ones, as best I can tell. So either adults, or this was some sort of... child-crèche, I suppose. Or they don't have a bipedal infant-form, like Terran wasps don't. Or _Elachi_." She snarled the last word.

Drake gave another grunt and looked around, then paused. "What if the ghost is trying to keep us away from engineering?"

Ten stuffed the tricorder back into its pouch. "In that case, this section isn't going anywhere." She grabbed his suit-sleeve and began clomping back the way they'd come. He didn't resist, though he cast another look at the first set of small, frozen corpses as they passed.

At the door, Ten retained her grasp on his sleeve and wedged her boot into the mechanism that allowed the door to be opened manually. With a final downward shove, and a faint grating noise, the opening was wide enough to allow them to slip through.

The other side of the archway... held a hallway that extended further into a dim indistinctness, with cross-corridors. It might have been a mirror to the forward half of the ship.

They headed down the path, then Ten paused as the grating sound came again, and swung around to watch the door slowly grinding shut.

"Charming," Drake remarked.

"There's enough atmosphere in here that I heard that," Ten said. Out came the tricorder again. "Still unpleasantly cold and thin, but better than in the forward section. Odd."

"Will we be able to open that door again?" he asked, as the thing slid entirely closed.

She smiled at him. It was not a nice expression. "Don't worry about it."


	12. Grasping at Clues

The black-pelted Caitian, F'rul, moved between two terminals in the small room -- one large, integral to the desk, and augmented with holodisplays that rose up whenever he got close enough, and the other small and portable. At one end of the desk was Tovan, brooding anxiously.

"Initial review of the recording got nothing but little blue dots," F'rul said, moving back to the main terminal. "But the camera's much higher-quality than one might expect, and there was enough image-data that I was able to play with ultraviolet, infrared, color-sharpening..."

"And?" Tovan said, voice strained.

"And _'dabo,'_ as the saying goes." His black-furred fingers tapped on the display's interface. "In the IR-bands, a little enhancement, and here we are, Subcommander."

Tovan strode over and leaned over the desk to get a better look at the main display. "Has the universal translator got anything for the labels?"

"As it happens, yes. With the cue that this was an _engineering_ panel, we were able to match some probable cognates that came from a similar language system." More tapping, and labels appeared above the existing symbols.

"Those look nothing alike," Tovan said.

"The symbols don't, but the patterns do, so we can assume the sounds might. And the labels make sense for engineering. Power. Control. Fuel. Access." F'rul pointed out different spots on the enhanced image.

"Where'd we get the other alphabet?"

"Ruins half-way across the sector, sir. A failed alien colony -- the xenoarcheological reports are mixed, of course, but the most convincing theory is that the colony suffered some kind of catastrophe that left them with a... religious method of interacting with their technology."

Tovan snorted briefly. "Flatter the Elements all you want, but it still won't fix life support, eh?"

"Essentially, sir. And the planet was marginal enough for their species that losing technology..." The Caitian shrugged his fully-organic shoulder. "They regressed to a bunch of primitives making camps in shuttle-hangers, then starved to death when their automated farming machines broke down -- with some evidence that they tried sacrificing tribal leaders to the machines for a while. I can bring up the images if you'd like."

"No, thanks. I've got enough nightmares right now." Tovan rubbed his face. "You think that species and this ship are connected?"

"Unclear. They might have gotten their technology from similar vendors, such as a Ferengi equivalent. They might have been from similar root-stock, like your own people and Vulcans, and re-shaped the alphabet instead of the language. We could speculate about client species, colonies, religious alphabets versus secular ones..." Again F'rul shrugged, this time with both shoulders. "All I know is that we've got a plausible match for the translator to work with."

"And can we figure out what that _fvadt_ human was _doing_?"

"As the Commander said, activating the FTL drive, apparently. First he entered in what appears to be an unlock code, using the alphabet symbols instead of the numerical ones -- they appear to have a base-9 counting system, of all the unholy options, by the way." F'rul bared his teeth at the display, but went on when Tovan waved vaguely at him. "He also entered what I'm guessing was an override. What he did _not_ enter, that I can tell, is anything that looks remotely like astrogation."

"What was he overriding?"

"Not positive, but I think something to do with life support."

"There's no life _left_ to support on that ship," Tovan grumbled. "Except for the Captain and Drake."

"Maybe the ghost knew that, and the ship didn't?" F'rul said.

"Are you using 'knew" literally?"

"I'm not sure," the Caitian said, tail swinging back and forth just a little too fast to be relaxed. "That failed colony, that was sacrificing people to their machines? Why would they make that offering more than once, if it _hadn't worked the first time_?"

"Not sure how that follows..."

"They were a fallen technological race, from what we can tell, and not a violent one. Why would they embrace self-sacrifice if it didn't work? One theory is that their devices were even more voice-oriented than ours are, and they misinterpreted spoken error messages. Another is that they were told to do it by artificial intelligences who achieved sapiency, and malevolence."

Tovan frowned at the display. "Don't suppose anyone mentions ghosts, do they? The recording... it doesn't look like Drake was entirely himself when he was messing with that console."

"Mind-influence. Hmmm." F'rul tapped a claw on the desk thoughtfully. "I'll look into that while the decryption is running."


	13. Bad Ideas

Engineering was reached by a large, double-door. One that had been welded shut from the outside. Tools were strewn around it: ancient welding devices, screwdrivers, lengths of metal, and smaller items of varying obviousness of purpose. Some floated slightly above the floor, while others had fetched up against walls or the doors themselves.

Ten rammed one of the metal rods against the doors, trying to wedge it into one of the less-sealed places. After a few tries, she succeeded enough to wiggle it more firmly into position, then yank back. The makeshift crowbar snapped, and she wound up slamming into the side of the corridor, with one foot still magnetically anchored to the floor and the other loose and slowly flailing.

"Graceful," Drake commented.

"Borg are known for our dancer-like poise," Ten replied, deadpan, while recovering her balance. "Glad I pulled instead of pushing. I might have snagged the suit otherwise, and I don't have a lot of patches." She used her piece of rod to tap the one that was still wedged between the doors, near the jagged break.

"Now what?"

"Is the ghost giving you any clues?"

He looked around, somewhere between alert and nervous. "No."

"Then I suppose I try to interface with a panel somewhere and see if this ship has maintenance tunnels. Find me a console." She wedged the broken end of her rod into the door above its other half and began adjusting her left-hand glove.

"I think I saw one back near the aft airlock here." He tromped around the corner, Ten following. He pointed at a dimly-lit control panel in the wall. "Will that do?"

She walked over to it and placed her left hand on it. The charcoal-black tendrils had already gone through the glove-ports, and now slipped into the edges of the panel. " _Ie_ ," she said, with a short nod.

Drake watched. Put his hands behind his back. Leaned firmly against the wall. Looked back and forth between the closed airlock and the other end of the corridor.

Began sweating.

Batted at his faceplate.

Clenched his fist and said, "Commander, the ghost is coming back. Or something."

Ten focused on him, probes retracting back into her glove. "Is it because it doesn't like me messing with the ship, or because I'm distracted?"

"How should I know?" he snapped.

"Mm. I think I have an alternate route now." She clomped up the wall and shoved at one of the ceiling panels. It moved. She slid it to one side, then pulled gray tubes out and let them float slowly away.

Drake moved to stand underneath it. "You think we can get through there?"

"I can. One of the benefits to being short." She began pulling herself into the hole.

"In our suits?"

"I think so. Lack of gravity helps. Would you rather I suddenly developed the ability to assimilate the doors back there?" Her feet drifted upward.

More to himself than to the suit-radio, Drake muttered, "Wouldn't be _sudden_ , now would it?" He batted at his faceplate again, sweating, then looked around.

Light glimmered at the cross-corridor, in a blurry, child-shaped form. He turned, and began to lift one foot -- then stopped, scowling, and kicked off the floor instead, dragging himself into the tunnel.

It was a tight fit, with his arms extended in front of him, shoving and kicking awkwardly at the sides of the maintenance tube. Ten's voice came through the suit-communicator. "Second intersection. Turn down -- well, ventral. It widens out some, but if you can't make it, go past and I'll grab your foot and drag."

"Right," Drake answered tersely. He pushed past the first intersection, scrabbled along, and entered the wider one. With more clumsy jackknifing, he pushed his way into another, somewhat larger tube. At the exit, Ten crouched, nanoprobes sunk into a console-panel in the flat surface near the opening. Drake pulled himself halfway out. "What're you doing?"

She retracted the probes and stood. "Having a discussion with the computer. Tell it to turn the lights on."

He shoved himself a little further out, with Ten helping him steady himself till his boots were locked onto the surface -- wall, ceiling, whatever. Then he tapped some of the suit controls, cleared his throat, and said, "Ah... Computer, lights."

Colored dots spread across surfaces, hinting at consoles and outlines of structures. Ten sighed. "It thinks it likes you better, but you're disappointing it." She took a step and flung her arms wide. "Let! There! Be! _Light!"_

And the ship's lights came on, blindingly bright and bluish, gleaming off gold and copper trim in a room that seemed half engineering and half theater, with a tall oval of a power-plant soaring from the ground floor, up past the balcony, and into the ceiling. And, though at first unclear from the pair's position, high upon a nominal wall... the room was liberally strewn with desiccated corpses.

The pair of suited, living beings looked out upon the scene, each seeming impassive. Tall, long-limbed bodies in still-shining uniforms were slumped over consoles or against wall-panels and other equipment, pierced with makeshift spears and knives. Similar aliens lay amid the toppled chairs and benches that ringed the upper balcony, broken and twisted. Some were smaller, with bracelets and anklets glittering in the light.

Uniformly shorter, ribbon-bedecked corpses were frozen in mid-claw at the sealed doors, or trying to destroy panels and consoles beside the bodies of those who had manned them.

Drake cleared his throat. "So. It likes me better?"

"It thinks so. You're the one who was playing with the engineering console."

"But it gave you better results."

"A common theme among Romulan leaders is an extreme self-confidence. Often paired with arrogance, because my dear and terrible people cannot bear a virtue that is not also a flaw. But a bit of the theatrical is appreciated, and a good commander learns how to harness this."

"And you're a good commander."

"One of Thirty was, and though he was Andorian, my mind held his thoughts more than once."

Drake grunted and tried to wipe at his brow again. "Feels hot in here."

"Your suit should be fine. It's psychological."

"What do you think happened?" He waved at the long-ended carnage.

"An uprising. Or possibly a coup, depending on which group thought they were in control." She sighed. "Unfortunately, rebelling against the crew who actually knew how to operate the ship... appears to have been a mutually fatal decision." She began walking down the wall. "Come on. Let's see if I can get anything more out of the computer if I talk to it from a better location."

Still trying to swipe at his faceplate whenever his concentration lapsed, Drake followed. "You keep talking like it's sapient, not just sentient. And don't tell me that it's 'complicated' again."

Ten heaved a much larger sigh. "I can access it like any other computer I or those in my cube accessed, though obviously I cannot crack through encryption as quickly as when I had a cube's resources. And yet I'm getting emotional data as well as normal computer data. And the emotions are becoming more subtle, nuanced, and elusive. I didn't think it was sapient before, but..."

"Some help you are."

Nearly at the nominal floor, Ten whirled on him as best she could in the lower gravity, teeth bared. "The only reason I'm here, Federation agent, is because otherwise you'd be endangering Eight or Fourteen or _both_ of my sisters. _You_ dragged me into this. Be relevant, or shut up while I try to find out what your weak-minded actions got us into."

As she turned away and made the turn from wall to floor, he snapped at her back, "If I'm so weak-minded, why'd you _bring_ me?"

She twisted to look at him again. "Because I assumed _I_ would be the one at risk, and would need my behavior monitored. And I did not wish to endanger my crew on this ghost ship of yours." With a final glare, she continued walking, threading her way among the bodies.

After a moment, Drake followed, silently, until they came to a large console that ringed the base of the presumed power-plant. It was partly smashed, with only dim flickers of activity around one edge, and the tall crew-alien sprawled in front of it held a large wrench in one fist. Metal rods stood up from the alien's back, where it had been speared from behind.

Drake said, "Looks broken." He wiped at his faceplate, sweat showing on his face.

Ten just looked at him, raising her left arm and stabilizing the glove with her right hand. Her nanoprobes emerged from the suit-ports.

As she set her hand to the part of the console that still had light, Drake added, "You like being creepy."

"'Being creepy' is irrelevant to Borg," she murmured. "So if I'm enjoying it, it means I'm not dreaming of the Collective's voices at the moment." She closed her eye and frowned in concentration, leaving Drake to watch.

And sweat.

To dart nervous glances to either side, and again.

Finally to wheel around. "I know you're here," he growled. "Show yourself!"

The lights went out.


	14. A Glimmer of Hope

In Tovan's darkened quarters, the ship comm chimed.

He'd been staring up at the ceiling anyway, lying on top of his bedcovers in undershirt, pants, and socks. He swung his legs down, reaching for his boots. "Yes?"

"Subcommander," F'rul's voice said. "You wanted to be woken..."

Tovan stood, grabbing his jacket. "I'll be right there," he said, and left the room.

Back in the Caitian's small workroom, F'rul was leaning back in his chair, both hands behind his head, and with a decidedly smug cant to his black whiskers. Holographic displays glowed softly on his desk. The room's door slid open on a dressed Tovan, and the Romulan strode in. "What've you got?"

"The last thing the commander sent included a chunk of new data, and I cracked the encryption. I have coordinates, sir." F'rul was practically gloating.

Tovan was at his side in an instant, leaning to get a better look at the display. "And?"

F'rul swung his metal-banded arm around and pointed. "Next. Star. Over." He smirked even more, mouth curling at the edges. "Now, question is, will the ship have enough _power_ to make the jump?"

"If it doesn't?"

"Then -- assuming my translations are right, and I'm confident with them -- it reappears here, sir. I recommend we pick one location for the _Kinaen_ , and put a shuttle or two at the other, to hedge our bets."

"Any idea if there's enough power?"

"Probably depends on if life support had enough to spare."

"And when will they come back? They're not already there, are they?"

"Unclear, sir. Shouldn't be any shorter a time than its usual pattern of vanishing and reappearing."

Tovan scowled at the display for a moment, his ridged forehead enhancing the expression's effect. He straightened and tapped at his wrist-communicator.

"Thydel here," came from the speaker.

"F'rul got a breakthrough. Have a couple shuttles prepped to stay here, with enough power-sources and medical supplies to tend to the commander if the ship comes back. And a couple of people who can go in and drag her out, fast, if she's not in the airlock. The _Kinaen_ 's going to be headed for these coordinates..." He tapped on the wrist-comm again. "At full warp. If it shows up over there, twelve hours after it left..."

"We'll be hours late to meet it, sir," the Bajoran said grimly. "Understood. I'll have the shuttles out in less than an hour."

"Have someone scan and see if there's a ship over there, too," Tovan added, soft, but matching the other man's grim tone.

"Yes, sir. Bridge out."

Tovan took a breath, head bowed, and said to F'rul, "Anything else?"

"As it happens, sir." The Caitian sat up and shifted the displays to an image of an archeological dig, with outlines highlighting the apparent bodies that had been uncovered. "I had to go scrounging through our Starfleet crew's personal files for this -- getting permission took most of the time, while the decryption was running, and my apologies, but I found an override program and made use of it. Since some people were sleeping, and I just needed to match some keywords."

"Override program?" Tovan gave him a perplexed look.

"It's either the commander's, or Centurion Nehor's. Decrypts files enough to search for keywords, then 'crypts them back up again. Clever little thing, really! Takes some command codes to access."

"I'll let you settle the matter with Nehor if it comes up. So what did you find?"

"Hints that extinct species I mentioned earlier? May have had _psionic technology_."

"They controlled their devices with telepathy?" Tovan asked.

"Now that gets beyond the details of this journal article -- it's really a pop-culture piece on xenoarcheology, not an in-depth report. But this device here?" He pointed at the shattered sphere amid the aliens in the image. "It's speculated to contain psionic technology. Something to produce a religious ecstasy, perhaps -- or a weapon or defense against the natural disaster that took them out."

"You think the ghost on that ship might be... a weapon? A defense?"

F'rul spread his hands, black-furred and metal-plated to either side. "I can't tell you that, sir. But it's not out of the question. Maybe it'll help people monitor their thoughts and actions a little better, if they know there's a real chance of mental influence."

"Package that up for the people who'll be left on the shuttles, and add a copy for me. I'll share it with Satra and the others, in case we have to go find Ten."

"And the human," F'rul added.

Tovan folded his arms. "If Ten's not all right when we get her back, I'll hand him to the Tal Shiar myself." He stalked out of the room like a predator.

F'rul watched him go, shrugged, and began typing on his console. To himself, he murmured, "Not that they'll get more than a vegetable, if it goes that far. Drake, you idiot..." He shook his head.


	15. Treachery, Age, and Borg

Ten's Borg-pale face was illuminated only by the dim glow of the console she was interfaced with, and the interior lights of her suit. She bent over the panel, surrounded by darkness.

Behind her, helmet-light swinging wildly, Drake shifted -- a man trying to maintain control over a situation where he clearly expected an attack by overwhelming numbers, already sneaking up on him. He turned from side to side, wary and hampered by the suit. He took steps, carefully, showing combat-training in spite of the clumsy, magnetized boots.

And he moved away from his companion, into the darkness.

Light swirled to one side, in an indistinct form, then vanished again as his helmet-light hit it -- reforming nearly behind him till he swung again. His breath was loud in his ears, in the helmet. Again, it appeared and vanished at his turning. And again. And then he stilled his turning and grabbed for it... but touched only the thin, chill excuse for air in the ship.

"Too far," he muttered, and groped for a tool, seizing upon one of the makeshift spears that pinned a mummified alien, upright, to some tall, enclosed equipment. Drake pulled the weapon free, jerking the corpse partway up the remaining spear that had killed it.

He swung the sharpened length, testing its heft and mass. When coiling light formed in the corner of his gaze, he lashed out. The tattered ribbons reformed to his other side, and again he struck.

Again.

And again.

Like a boy with a butterfly net, expression almost detached, as if it were an impersonal puzzle that had to be solved. Step. Swing. Turn. Swing. Step. Turn. Swing.

Light caught the corner of his eye. He almost turned towards it. Then he murmured, "Let's try something--" He turned opposite, swinging the weapon with both hands. " _\--Different!"_

The rod had enough mass, the swing had enough force... It caught Ten of Thirty on the upper arm, knocking her to the side and pulling her hand free of the console. Her boots de-magnetized briefly, to protect her ankles, and skidded along the floor with only the edges providing any "down." The sharpened tip of the crude spear ripped through her suit's fabric.

She twisted, awkward and efficient, and raised her left arm -- air leaking and suit murmuring calm, intense warnings -- so that the nanoprobes pointed at him.

For a moment, he stood over her, seeming confused. Then light became a point-eared child, floating behind him, hands on his shoulder. And he snarled, "This is all _your_ fault, isn't it! It's a trap! You can't trust Borg, can't trust Romulans..." He swung the spear at her again.

She rolled and kicked off, momentum and zero gravity taking her in a shallow, upward course as she fumbled for one of her suit-pockets. The suit murmured, "Suit integrity damaged. Joint-compression enabled," and bands tightened at its shoulders, to either side of her elbows, and just above the wrists. The suit added, "Oxygen levels dropping."

"Suit," Ten told it, "cease air circulation and allow pressure drop for twenty seconds." She slapped a patch of fabric over the rip, rubbing it into place, her glove entirely covering it.

The spear struck downwards, directly on the top of her helmet, sending her off-course even as Drake was propelled away and towards the nominal ceiling. She hit the top of a raised bit of equipment and skidded along it on her chest, grabbing for the edges. Her fingers hooked into a loop of wiring -- it yanked free on one end, but the other held, and she slewed to a stop.

Above Ten, Drake twisted, caught the balcony railing, and got his feet against it. He pushed off, aimed for her, spear held for thrusting.

Ten's suit murmured, "Resuming air circulation." She gasped as she resumed breathing, but roll-shoved herself to one side, legs flailing.

Drake's spear sank into the top of the equipment before the shock of impact jolted it briefly from his hands. He grabbed it again, swinging his boots around to click onto the surface so he could pull it free. He oriented on his target, and kicked off again, weapon held in both hands, ready to stab.

Free-floating, awkwardly positioned, Ten seemed a helpless target. She pulled in her legs and arms, making herself smaller. His strike came in fast and two-handed -- and she uncoiled, kicking the weapon away from her body and propelling herself to the other side.

Drake kept his grip on the spear with one fist, and twisted, groping for a handhold. He touched the wall and twisted again to get his boots on it.

Ten's foot found purchase on that same wall, and she kicked her other foot backwards to stop her arc. Air hissed from the rip on her suit's outer thigh, and it was tightening again -- below the hip, above and below the knee, above the ankle.

She slapped a patch over most of the long rent, while Drake connected solidly with the wall and began swiftly clomping towards her, weapon in both hands like a jagged-tipped staff.

Ten crouched and yanked a similar weapon from the wall panel by her boot. Then she lifted it, one-handed, like a sword -- her other hand still keeping the patch pressed against the suit-rip so it could adhere.

His stroke, when he came in range, was as if he held a club: a swing meant to overpower her thin arms. Her weapon met it in a parry that sent a faint clanging noise through the thin atmosphere -- and then she was sent flying again, boots demagnetized. This time, her own weapon warded his away from her, protecting her from yet another suit-tear.

He leaped after her.

Coils of light formed into a ghost-child to her left, beside where she held her hand to her thigh.

"I'm busy right now," she told it, and closed her left eye. Her right eyepiece took over entirely, barely needing light; Drake's trajectory was plotted, heat and power-sources were marked, while the edges of all else were blurred with chill.

He overtook her, aiming for her suit's already-damaged leg. She parried with her own weapon, sweeping across her lower half, and kicked him in the chest as they flew apart. Momentum sent her to the floor, locking boots to that surface, and him against a bank of consoles -- barely missing the spears that pierced them in targeted violence.

He yanked free another jagged-tipped shaft, slightly shorter than the first, and set his boots to the floor.

Ten passed her weapon to her left hand, and pulled at that hand's wrist.

Drake charged, in swift, lumbering clomps. His first stab was left-handed, glancing off her suit-helmet as she grabbed the weapon and pulled it away from true aim. His second, right-handed thrust was caught by her own spear's shaft.

He yanked his left-hand weapon further out, so she would release it or be flung to one side and likely exposed to an attack by the right-hand spear. Ten let go. Her single weapon slid down his till their suit-knuckles were nearly touching. Her hand and wrist were nearly in a fencer's grip, elbow bent -- and bending further as he pressed against it.

His attention wavered for a moment as he brought his left hand back for another thrust.

A charcoal-black nanoprobe slid from Ten's left glove, alongside her least-finger, and embedded itself in Drake's hand. He stared at it in horror, while she absently caught his second weapon. Then he choked out, "Treach--"

His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp, hands relaxing and letting the spears float free. Only the magnetic boots tethered him.

Ten gathered the weapons and set them against the ground, then went about the task of more properly patching the rip on her suit's leg. She opened her eye.

Everything went bright around her, spinning, with pastel oil-slick colors.


	16. Complications

This far out, where stars were wide-spaced, even "next star over" was a goodly distance indeed. Tovan had ordered the slipstream drive used as needed -- and neither Veril nor Teilia had objected to the strain on engines and ship. Nothing had exploded spectacularly.

"Sir," Nirel said, "I'm picking something up from the other system. _Not_ the derelict," she added quickly, as Tovan turned his head to the science station at the back of the bridge, where she sat.

"Do you have a visual on it?" he asked, instead.

"No, sir. Right now, it's just... energy readings."

At the helm, Konratra said, "Of a type we've never encountered?" The universe was full of strange things that displayed their strangeness in unique ways; it was the way to bet.

Nirel was tapping and sweeping her fingers against the science console. "Actually? While we _personally_ haven't scanned this before, they're not far off something in the database. "

"Huh!" the helmswoman said. "That's unusual."

Tovan said, "So what are we approaching?"

"We're a little too far for me to be positive, sir, but it closely matches one of two possibilities. Either something is generating a lot of energy in a steady way -- some kind of power-source or reflecting of the star's energy -- or it's some kind of energy beings. Big ones. In orbit around the star. A distant third match would be a natural or artificial wormhole attempting to form, but that's based on the scans of the Bajoran wormhole, which is full of energy beings anyway, so maybe there's overlap..." Nirel trailed off into muttering to herself as she prodded at the data.

"Any signs of sapient life?" Tovan asked, attempting to redirect her to more _relevant_ information (as Ten would say).

"I don't think so. The only radio signals, way out here, are too faint and garbled to be from that system. It's low on planets -- one supergiant in tight orbit, nothing but tiny moons for it, and it's swept the 'water-zone' clear. Two regular gas-giants and some frozen rockballs are further out."

"Where are the energy signatures?" Tovan said, and added, "Put it on the main screen."

Nirel did, in false-color and proportions that sacrificed accuracy for clarity in representation: the star and its supergiant almost seemed to touch, and the gap between it and the outer planets was foreshortened, though still clear. Several large blotches of blood-green orbited the supergiant, and a few smaller ones circled the other gas-giants. Here and there, small green pinpricks dotted the system in general. Nirel said, "If we presume attempted wormholes, this would be an astonishing collection of them, suggesting that either space is very weak here, or something elsewhere is attempting to punch through to this system and is doing a bad job of it."

Tovan said, "F'rul speculated that the derelict's drive would either drop it back in that system, or take it to this one... Could it be trying to make wormholes?"

"Not impossible, sir!" Nirel said approvingly. "I'm a little dubious about that possibility, though, since all of these readings are steady. And the energy signature match isn't as good as the other two options."

Tovan said, "Could they be some... some colony that uses wormhole physics for communication and travel?"

"Also not impossible. We're far enough out, and the slipstream itself causes enough interference, that I'm only getting the really noisy energy signatures. Another theory would be a species that uses a high-energy form of shields for their stations and ships. But you're right -- subspace communications, radio, standard comm... None of it seems present. If that's a sapient species, they're talking with wormholes. Which would be utterly fascinating, really!"

Ten would have wandered over to Nirel to get more details, Tovan knew. Ten's primary programming had been medical, but she'd branched out after they'd joined the Republic's flotilla. Sadly for Nirel's enthusiasm, Tovan wasn't likely to be able to follow any of the science officer's explanations. Thus, it was Konratra who asked, "And if they use wormhole technology for everything, what's it doing to local space?"

Nirel made a noise best described as _oooooo!_ and started playing with the sensors again, with arcane imagry mirrored to the main display.

It wasn't like their own consoles couldn't give them personal displays of what they needed to see, but Tovan gently closed Nirel's feed to the main one. "Helm. Time to destination?"

Konratra replied, "Six more hours, sir, counting the cooldown on the slipstream in about three hours."

"If they can push the cooldown?"

"Won't shave more than an hour, sir, at best." She'd told him that before, and was graciously not letting that show in her voice.

Tovan sighed and rubbed his face. "What if that hour is the difference between getting her recharged, and her shutting down?"

"I'll message Engineering and see what they can do," Konratra said, kindly.


	17. Allegories

Ten stood upon brightness, surrounded by brightness, in a void as white as the Nothing outside the ship had been black. Pastel aurora swirled, mimicking colors on a soap bubble more than planetary atmosphere effects. It seemed her suit was gone.

Thoughtfully, Ten closed her eye. The brightness faded in her sight, replaced by the readouts of her eyepiece and the darkened engine room. The image was clouded over, and the numerals and letters wavered as if underwater. Her suit's faceplate had a small scratch across it, where Drake's weapon had scored briefly.

She opened her eye again, and stood within the glow. "You seem to have finally accessed my perceptions," she remarked mildly. "It seems an invasive form of communication, and I should know."

The tatterdemalion child formed out of colors, standing at twice arm's length before her. Its clothing was iridescent white. Its features shifted and blurred.

Ten went to one knee, regarding the being from closer to its height.

It regarded her back, silently.

"He's only unconscious," Ten finally said. "I could have done without his paranoia taking over. If you were hoping to use him as a communication conduit."

The images of the dead aliens formed and vanished, formed and vanished, like a heartbeat. The structures of the engine room were only hinted at by their positions, and the entire macabre display stretched out around them.

"Or if you wanted him dead," Ten replied, "I slightly regret that I do not wish to oblige you. It would be too inconvenient. Likewise, _I_ am not inclined to die for you."

The images solidified, sharply, then faded away to brightness again.

"If you have nothing further to impart, I would like to get back to interfacing with the ship's computer. Dying is not on my schedule. It would upset my crew and my sisters."

The ground rumbled. Ten turned her head sharply.

With the similar mutability of detail, the core of the image was plain: giant, running creatures, stampeding in an unrealistically straight line. Ten gave the herd a look that clearly conveyed deep disappointment, sigh-snorted exasperatedly as she watched for a second longer, and jumped forward, grabbing the ghost-child to her and rolling, then gaining her feet and sprinting a few more steps.

Behind them, the indistinct herd thundered past, followed by a floodwave that subsided to a river, then a stream, and then nothing but brightness again.

Ten observed the effects with nearly Vulcan dispassion, then set the child-ghost down and straightened. She said, "There are certain stories -- fables -- consistent among many cultures. In particular, there is one of apparent similarity, but with dual outcomes. In the first type of story, giving aid to a creature will win a favor from it in the future. In the second, kindness will win nothing but poisoning or being devoured, because the creature cannot defy its nature. The Collective is like that. Favors and bargains mean nothing but perhaps a brief delay. The Collective _will_ seek to assimilate, because that is the nature of the Collective.

"I, however, am no longer of the Collective, and may thus repay a favor in kind, when it's needed."

The child-ghost looked up for a long moment, then pointed.

Ten glanced to that side -- her left side -- at the engineering station that had appeared there. She laid her left hand on it, steadying the glove into position with her right, and extended her nanoprobes.


	18. A Deadline

Tovan wanted to pace, but he was sitting the tactical boards while Nehor rolled her eyes and waited for him to dash off somewhere. More patiently, the Bajoran exchange officer -- whose shift it was to be sitting in the command chair now, technically -- was off next to Nirel. Nirel was also technically off-shift, but prying her away from the sensors now that they'd entered the target system... Well, it probably would've taken a stunner to the back of the head to get her to leave.

"I'm not picking up any other signs of civilization, sir, so I think we can rule out these as a form of technological shielding or communication. I'm actually advancing the possibility of proto-wormholes, though -- now that we're closer, I'm picking up subtle fluctuations. I'm pretty sure they're not artifacts of scanning them at all..." Nirel abruptly dipped into muttering in a form of High Science that borrowed words from at least three other species, and Tovan stopped paying attention.

Instead, he tapped the communicator switch on his console and said, "F'rul, you got any better coordinates out of that?"

The Caitian's voice replied, "Sorry, Subcommander. My best guess would be that spot between the main gravitational pulls of the giants, but edge-of-system's about equally likely."

"Thanks." Tovan switched off the link and glared at the main display, which had a variation of Nirel's simplified system-portrayal on it. The science officer would love a chance to get better scans of the energy signatures that ringed the supergiant in large clumps, but Tovan wasn't sure he wanted to be too close to any of them yet. That left out anything near the other gas giants, too. He wasn't keen on staying on the edges of the system, though, in case the derelict appeared on the _opposite_ edge. A more central location would've suited him better, but he didn't want that derelict appearing on top of the _Kinaen_ either. Or trying to occupy the same space.

"Are there any planets without the energy signatures?" he asked.

Nirel left off her scientific muttering. "No, sir, not till you get to the coldest ones at the farthest edge here." A few dwarf planets became highlighted on the display.

Tovan stifled a sigh. "Helm."

Konratra had gone off-shift. Now they had the Risian native, Veol, whom Ten had somehow acquired during a politically motivated shore-leave. (The orders had been, roughly, _Show the other species that the Romulan Republic's officers aren't Star Empire ones. Be friendly. Don't wreck anything. Don't damage anyone._ ) The Risian woman said, "Yes, sir?"

"Hold us out here, reasonably far from the energy signatures in this area. If the derelict shows up, I want us next to it as fast as possible."

"Yes, sir! I can kick in a little fractional warp if Teilia'll let me..."

Obediently, Tovan flipped the switch for Engineering, and at the elder Reman's acknowledgement, relayed, "Teilia, Veol wants permission to abuse the warp drive if the derelict appears somewhere besides right next to us."

"Please remind her," Teilia's voice came, in a tone that said she knew perfectly well Veol was listening in, "that the _Kinaen_ is a heavy destroyer and not a Scorpion-class fighter. But since she's asked ahead of time, then just this once. Take us to a yellow alert before you do it, if you can."

"Understood. Bridge out."

"Where Risians find would-be fighter pilots, I'll never know," Teilia said, before cutting her end of the communication.

Veol snickered, and Tovan managed an amused snort and sympathetic glance at Thydel, who was the usual person dealing with second-shift's personalities and banter.

Then he sobered and looked at the other part of the display: the numbers, counting down, for the maximum time the derelict had been reported as staying vanished. It had gotten to a double-handful of minutes, and while Tovan was glad they weren't there too late to meet the derelict -- assuming it didn't pop out in its prior position -- he hated waiting.

"Sir?" Nirel said. She sounded worried. "Downgrading probability of those being wormholes again."

He would've asked why, but the display was showing him. Highlighted, two of the energy signatures were approaching the _Kinaen_ , having broken their orbit around the nearest frozen rockball. As he watched, another of the blood-green specks that had been floating between planets _also_ shifted course.

"What speeds?" he asked. The shift had, obviously, been enough to be tracked -- but the false proportions of the display were unclear as to how soon the things might reach them.

"Slightly slower than our full impulse, sir," Nirel reported.

"Helm... keep us away from those things. Full impulse as needed."

"Aye, sir!" Veol paid attention to her console.

"Nirel, can we get some kind of visual on these things?"

"Not unless we get much closer, sir. Right now, they're energy signatures." She paused, then said, "Aaaand more of them are getting interested."

Tovan said, "Thydel, any suggestions how Starfleet would handle this?"

The dark-skinned Bajoran shook his head, earring swinging gently. "Not unless you've got a powerful, trained Vulcan on board, or a Betazoid, to try to make contact. And I don't think any of the empaths and telepaths on the ship fully qualify. We'd try not to shoot at the things, of course."

"I don't want to make them angry, whatever they are," Tovan agreed.

"That either," Thydel said, wryly.

From the helm, Veol commented, "This is getting a little tricky. That one's faster than the others."

"Stronger energy signature," Nirel said. "Definitely faster than the others. On the positive side, I'm getting some absolutely wonderful scans."

"The scan we're hoping for," Tovan reminded her, "is the one that gets Ten back."

No one on the bridge bothered to add in "and that human."

"Understood, sir. No recognizable ships at this time."

Tensely, Tovan watched as Veol swung the ship through more and more convoluted maneuvers. "Don't bother staying in the system plane," he finally said. "If we're ready to tap warp when the derelict arrives anyway, then it won't matter much."

"Aye, sir. Taking us up."

The signatures, Tovan noted, followed.

"Speed and signature strength correlate," Nirel reported. "Which isn't surprising, if they're energy beings of some kind."

"Have the ones around the supergiant noticed us yet?" Tovan asked, eyeing the relative color-intensities of the various energy beings on the display.

Nirel was silent for a moment. "They're adjusting their positions around the supergiant, sir. In our direction. None have broken orbit yet, but they're definitely more lively than they were before we dropped out of warp. And before we started moving around to avoid the others."

"Are they upset by our active scans?" he said, and now he did stand and gesture for Nehor to take his seat. Sit at the tach console, and the weapons were right there to tempt you. He went to lean on the command chair instead.

"Unclear, sir. The longer-range ones didn't seem to trouble them. I can go to passive-only, but that'll mean Veol will have to work with projections, not live data, to avoid them."

Veol said, "Would rather _not_ , sir."

"Try to minimize scans, then. Reduce the range. Give Veol enough to work with." He glanced over his shoulder.

Thydel said, "I've got your preferences, sir." He gestured at the countdown numbers on the display. "Will you want them beamed aboard or should we try to get close enough to pull them in an airlock?"

Tovan tapped his hands on the back of the command chair, fingers sinking into the cushioned back just lightly. "Nirel, are those energy beings going to interfere with transporters?"

"I am not su--" She broke off. "Well, now I know why the computer came up with wormhole signatures, too. The brightest one just vanished from the supergiant's orbit and appeared fifty kay to starboard. Dimmer."

"They wormhole themselves."

"With about as much fanfare as that _fvadt_ derelict, on either end, sir. Pardon my language."

"And will that affect transporters?"

Nirel was silent for a moment. "Get close enough, and no. Don't try extreme ranges, and... don't have one of these things between us and what we're grabbing. I have the worried feeling they eat energy, and they're curious about us because we're a tasty moving target."

"Eat energy..." Tovan furrowed his brow in thought, then shook his head. "Thydel, you're right: I'm tired, and you know what to do. Take the bridge. I'll be in the transporter room."

"Understood, Subcommander," the Bajoran said, moving to beside him.

Tovan was almost to the turbolift when Nirel cried out, "I've got it! Derelict on sensors! There, in the midpoint!"

He hesitated a moment, while Veol caroled, "On it!" Then Thydel was sounding yellow alert, and the ship shuddered with a touch of the warp drive.

Tovan ran for the lift, snapped, "Transporter room!" and let the computer figure out which deck that was. When the doors whooshed open, he pelted out, nearly bowling over more than one of the various crew. In the transporter room, Veril (fatigued) and some other engineering crew (alert) had gotten there first, with the giant battery pack and the charging gauntlets Ten most commonly used.

"Energizing now," the officer said, before Tovan could ask for her for a status report, and two forms shimmered into the room, coalescing out of green fire and falling a few inches to the floor.

He ran for them, skidding to his knees, grabbing the suit-glove on the smaller figure and pulling it off so Veril could get the first gauntlet on and matched to the charging plates on Ten's hand. Then he let Veril pull off the second glove while he unfastened the helmet.

Ten's head fell limply against his leg, her skin even whiter than usual, with swamp-gray shadows of veins at her cheeks and forehead. Then she opened her eye, unfocused, and whispered, "Us. Away. Fast."

Tovan shouted, "Bridge, get us _away_!"

On the internal comm, Nirel was yelling something about "unstable!" while Veol called, "Gimme warp, Tei!"

But around Tovan, the world had gone iridescent white. He looked to one side, and it seemed _something_ was breaking through a shell, or chrysalis. Giant pastel wings unfolded -- one moment a vast insect's, the next dragon's leather, and settling on the feathers of an enormous raptor that raised its beak and screamed a bone-rattling call.

Other wings beat in the distance, blurred images in the brightness, and as if from a long way away, he heard Thydel order warp speed, and Veol respond with glee.

Then he was clutching Ten to him while Veril clung to their commander's other arm, both of them looking shaken.

Against his chest, Ten said faintly, "Tovan... do you remember the storyteller on Virinat?"

"Yes," he said. "You used to complain you couldn't understand why most of her stories were relevant."

Her pallid lips twitched into a weak smile. "I figured out a relevancy."


	19. Epilogue

In Ten's ship-office, she did not sit behind her desk. Instead, she was on the couch, bracketed by Tovan and Teilia. Tovan was saying, "You don't have to do this right now. You're still recovering." Teilia was sliding a charging gauntlet onto Ten's bare hand on that side, the cable running from the large battery beside her and Ten's knees. Ten's usual glove lay upon the low table in front of the couch.

"I'll be fine," Ten said, mildly, though she still looked more grayish than her usual green-tinted pale.

The door slid open, and Nehor walked in to go stand at the far end of the room, one hand on her weapon in its holster, and her perpetually worried expression tinged with disapproval.

Next came Franklin Drake, a man trying to radiate that everything was under control, instead of fuming. He stood in the middle of the room, facing the couch, while F'rul followed him in and leaned against the wall near the door, tail swinging idly. Tovan sat protectively beside Ten, glowering. Teilia, after a disdainful glance at the human, busied herself in bringing another cable and flat charging plate from the battery and tucking it down the back of Ten's collar.

Ten leaned forward to aid in this and said, still mild, "You asked to see me, Mister... Sanders?"

"Commander Ten," he said, in tones that were not civilian.

"Ah, you asked as an agent." She smiled faintly. "I accept your apology. You were, after all, under the influence of an alien consciousness."

(F'rul snorted very quietly, tail-tip flipping up in amusement before resuming its prior lazy swing.)

Drake's expression was frozen into a bland poker-face worthy of a particularly irked Vulcan. After a moment, and a breath, he said, "You rigged the ship to explode. Somehow."

"I did," she replied.

"I would like the data you downloaded from the derelict before... matters escalated."

Ten regarded him, eye half-lidded. "I have released to you all the data I feel like giving you at this time, Federation agent. If I come across anything else I deem harmless enough, I'll send that along too."

"The treaties include sharing of information between our governments. Commander."

"Then it is a good thing I do not intend to release that data to my government, either."

(Off to the side, Nehor sighed quietly.)

To his credit, Drake did not have his teeth clenched as he asked, "And why not?" His tone was even something approximating pleasant.

"I cannot countenance the enslavement of a sentient being to power FTL drives. Especially when prolonged exposure to sapient minds uplifts it to a kind of self-awareness itself."

Drake drew another breath, apparently illuminated. "The ability to confine energy beings could be extremely valuable. Many of them are capricious, or hostile."

"The ability of Borg to contain capricious or hostile _physical_ beings is not well-regarded."

"And yet." He looked at her levelly.

"And a ship full of alien slaves and masters is dead, because they assumed the ability to do a thing gave them the _right_ to do a thing -- and found their captive had other ideas." Ten leaned back against the couch. "If I can separate out the containment from the exploitation of the captive's energies and abilities, I will consider releasing that information to our respective governments. If the technologies are too intertwined..." She shrugged. "I'll delete it."

Drake actually winced. "You can't make that decision on your own," he said.

She lifted her chin, managing to look down her nose at him, though she sat and he stood. "Who better?" she said coldly. "I am Borg. I am Romulan. My _heritage_ is that of the slaver, on _both_ sides -- or do we forget the Remans' entirely reasonable complaints about my species?" (Teilia looked at her gently, from beneath her hood.) Ten continued, "But heritage is not destiny. I reject it. I will not give the Federation _or_ the Republic the tools to become slavers in yet another way. If you want the technology, invent it yourselves. Bad enough that now you know it _can_ be done."

Drake stood silently for a moment, looking down impassively. "I will file a complaint with your government."

"I hope Proconsul D'Tan will send me a copy of his reply." Ten smiled again. "Dismissed, Federation agent."

With a curt nod, Drake left, F'rul following. Nehor moved to do the same, but Ten lifted a hand. "Give the Federation citizens a moment to commiserate."

"Yes, Commander."

The doors closed on the ship-office, and Drake stalked across the bridge while the rest of the crew there -- third-shift, now -- feigned to ignore him. F'rul strolled after, hands behind his back and tail with a content curl at the end, and joined Drake in the turbolift.

"Crew deck," the Caitian said. The turbolift whirred into motion.

In an undertone, Drake said, "And your records?"

"Wiped clean as if they'd never been there," F'rul murmured back, with a serenity that approached cheerfulness. "Except for the translations, at least. I'm sure some of the information will find its way back, once she's decided what she'll be sending on."

"That... little..."

"Borg is the word you want, sir. That little Borg."

"That is not the word I want," Drake said.

"I think, all things considered, it will have to do."

The turbolift doors opened, and the pair exited, turning their separate ways.

* * *

**closing credits**


End file.
